.^X  OF  PRINCfiJjs 


"^fOtOGICAL  St*^ 


^^t- 


BV    4208     .G7    B7 

Brown,  John,  1830-1922. 

Puritan  preaching  in  Engla 


DATE    DUE 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  USA. 

PURITAN    PREACHING   IN 
ENGLAND 

A   STUDY  OF  PAST  AND   PRESENT 


THE  LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING 
AT   YALE    UNIVERSITY,  OCTOBER,  i8gg 


PURITAN    PREACHING 
IN    ENGLAND 

0  ^tuD^  of  pa0t  anu  present 


/      BY 

JOHN    BROWN,  B.A.,  D.D. 

AUTHOR   OF    "JOHN    BUNYAN,    HIS     LIFE,    TIMES,    AND   WORK," 

"the   pilgrim    FATHERS   AND    THEIR    PURITAN 

SUCCESSORS,"   ETC. 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1900 


Copyright,  1900, 
By  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


UNIVERSITY   PRESS    •    JOHN    WILSON 
AND    SON     .     CAMBRIDGE,     U.S.A. 


TO  THE 

REV.  GEORGE    P.  FISHER,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History  and  Dean 
of  the  Factdty  of  Theology  in 
Yale   University, 

IN   GRATEFUL   REMEMBRANCE   OF  A   PLEASANT 
AND   GREATLY  VALUED   FRIENDSHIP. 


CONTENTS. 


Lecture  Page 

I.    Introductory.  —  The  Preaching  of 

THE  Friars 3 

II.    John  Colet  and  the  Preachers  of 

THE  Reformation 35 

III.  The  Cambridge  Puritans     ....       67 

IV.  Thomas  Goodwin  and  the  Cambridge 

Platonists 99 

V.    John  Bunyan  as  a   Life-Study  for 

Preachers 131 

VI.    Richard    Baxter,    the    Kiddermin- 
ster Pastor 165 

VII.    Representative  Preachers  of  Mod- 
ern Puritanism.  —  (i.)  Thomas  Bin-  ^ 
ney  and  Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon     .'     199 
VIII.    Representative  Preachers  of  Mod- 
ern Puritanism.  —  (ii.)  R.  W.  Dale, 

of  Birmingham 231 

IX.    Representative  Preachers  of  Mod- 
ern Puritanism.  —  (iii.)  Alexander  ^ 
Maclaren,  of  Manchester 263 


INTRODUCTORY  — THE   PREACHING 
OF   THE   FRIARS 


LECTURE   I 

INTRODUCTOEY— THE  PEEACHING  OF 
THE  FRIARS 

Gentlemen  op  the  Divinity  School  : 

IN  entering  upon  the  series  of  Lectures  I 
begin  to-day  let  me  do  so  with  a  prelimi- 
nary word  of  personal  sort.  When  a  preacher 
consents  to  lecture  on  Preaching  he  is  very 
apt  to  be  haunted  by  a  fear  lest  that  consent 
should  be  interpreted  to  mean  that  he  pre- 
sents himself  as  an  example  of  the  ideal  he  is 
about  to  hold  up  to  others.  Lest  my  consent 
to  speak  to  you  should  be  so  construed  let  me 
hasten  at  once  to  shelter  myself  behind  the 
modest  words  with  which  even  so  great  a 
Church  Father  as  Augustine  felt  it  needful 
to  conclude  the  fourth  book  of  his  treatise  on 
Christian  Doctrine.  This  work,  intended  as  a 
manual  for  preachers,  thus  concludes  :  "  I  give 
thanks  to  God  that  with  what  little  ability  I 
possess  I  have  in  these  four  books  striven  to 
depict  not  the  sort  of  man  I  am  myself  (for 
my  defects  are  very  many),  but  the  sort  of 


4  PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

man  he  ougflit  to  be  who  desires  to  labor  in 
sound,  that  is,  in  Christian  doctrine,  not  for 
his  own  instruction  only,  but  for  that  of 
others  also." 

The  men  who  have  been  longest  engaged 
in  the  work  of  preaching  will  be  those  most 
ready  to  understand  the  feeling  expressed  in 
these  words.  They  are  painfully  conscious 
how  imperfectly  they  have  been  able  to 
realize  their  own  ideal.  For  the  work  of  the 
Christian  ministry  grows  greater  to  our 
thought  the  longer  we  are  in  it,  and  with  this 
growing  sense  of  the  greatness  of  the  work 
there  comes  a  deepening  consciousness  of  our 
own  insufficiency  for  it.  One  of  the  greatest 
—  perhaps  the  greatest  —  personality  in  the 
pulpit  of  English  Congregationalism  during 
the  forty  years  between  1829  and  1869  was 
Thomas  Binney,  the  well-known  pastor  of 
the  Weigh  House  Church  in  London.  During 
the  years  I  have  mentioned  he  not  only 
largely  shaped  the  character  of  some  of  our 
foremost  laymen,  but  also  inaugurated  a  new 
era  of  preaching  for  the  younger  generation 
of  preachers.  Year  after  year  students  for  the 
Christian  Ministry  gathered  round  that  far- 
famed  pulpit  to  catch  the  living  inspiration  he 
gave  them  for  their  own  life-work.     Among 


THE  PREACHING    OF  THE   FRIARS  5 

those  often  found  there  in  that  earlier  time 
was  one  now  known  on  both  sides  the  Atlan- 
tic as  the  great  Manchester  preacher  — 
Alexander  Maclaren.  Indulging  in  some 
early  reminiscences  on  the  occasion  of  his 
Jubilee  as  a  minister,  he  spoke  of  Thomas 
Binney  as  "  the  man  that  taught  me  to 
preach."  He  went  on  to  say :  "  I  remember 
when  once,  with  the  enthusiasm  of  the  student, 
I  went  to  him  to  thank  him  for  all  that  I  had 
learned  from  him,  he  said  to  me  with  tears  in 
his  eyes  —  '  Don't  speak  about  it !  It 's  all 
such  a  poor  thing  —  it 's  all  such  a  poor 
thing.' "  After  being  for  fifty  years  a 
preacher  himself,  Dr.  Maclaren  said,  "  I 
understand  his  point  of  view  now  as  I  did 
not  then."  In  like  manner  the  late  Dr.  Dale 
after  preaching  Christ's  Gospel  to  his  people 
for  forty  years,  wrote  to  them  at  the  end  of 
that  time,  saying :  "  It  seems  to  me  sometimes 
that  I  am  only  just  beginning  to  catch  a  faint 
glimpse  of  the  glory  and  power  of  the  redemp- 
tion which  God  has  wrought  for  us  through 
the  Incarnation,  Death,  Resurrection,  and 
Ascension  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

When  the  invitation  came  to  me  to  deliver 
the  present  series  of  the  Lyman  Beecher 
Lecture,  there    came  with  it  the  suggestion 


6  PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

that  some  historical  theme  such  as  Puritan 
Preaching  (or  Preachers)  would  be  well  with- 
in the  scope  of  the  Founder's  purpose.  To 
speak  quite  frankly,  this  suggestion  really- 
decided  me  to  consent  to  come  to  you.  For 
I  could  not  but  remember  how  many  and 
comprehensive  have  been  the  counsels  of 
those  who  have  preceded  me  in  this  Lecture- 
ship ;  with  what  practical  wisdom  they  have 
treated  such  subjects  as  the  training  and 
equipment  of  the  preacher,  the  preparation 
and  delivery  of  the  sermon ;  and  the  best 
methods  of  conducting  church  worship  and 
church  affairs.  I  remembered,  too,  what 
earnest  words  have  again  and  again  been 
spoken  on  such  still  closer  matters  as  that  of 
the  divine  call  in  the  preacher's  own  soul,  and 
the  watchful  heed  he  must  needs  keep  over 
his  own  spiritual  life.  I  felt  that  I  could  not 
hope  to  add  anything  of  value  to  what  had  been 
already  so  powerfully  said  by  so  many  distin- 
guished men  both  from  your  side  of  the 
Atlantic  and  ours.  But  when  the  subject  of 
Puritan  Preachers  and  Preaching  was  sug- 
gested to  me,  it  seemed,  first  of  all,  to  fall 
in  with  a  line  of  study  which  has  always  been 
pleasant  to  me  ;  next  that  it  would  be  some- 
what  of   a   variation  from   lines   previously 


THE  PREACHING    OF  THE  FRIARS  7 

travelled ;  and  finally  that  something  might 
be  gained  to  the  present  by  a  brief  historical 
review  of  the  preaching  of  the  past,  and  of 
the  forces  which  made  it  what  it  was. 

Such  review  will,  I  venture  to  think,  tend  to 
deepen  your  own  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  ■ 
work  in  which  your  own  life  is  to  be  spent.  In 
any  department  of  service  it  is  good  for  the 
worker  himself  to  feel  that  the  work  to  be 
done  has  always  been  felt  to  be  well  worth  the 
doing.  And  he  who  realizes  the  living  place 
which  preaching,  in  its  most  vital  forms,  has 
ever  taken  in  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Church 
will  need  no  further  assurance  of  its  great 
importance.  He  will  not  fail  to  note  that  thev 
preacher's  message  and  the  Church's  spiritual 
condition  have  risen  or  fallen  together. 
When  life  has  gone  out  of  the  preacher  it  is 
not  long  before  it  has  gone  out  of  the  Chm'ch 
also.  On  the  other  hand,  when  there  has 
been  a  revived  message  of  life  On  the  preach- 
er's lips  there  comes  as  a  consequence  a  re- 
vived condition  in  the  Church  itself.  The 
connection  between  these  two  things  has 
been  close,  uniform,  and  constant. 

Such  a  look-back  as  I  propose  to  take  may   ' 
also  serve,  I  think,  to  quicken  a  holy  am- 
bition.    The  least  and  lowliest  may  be  trans- 


8  PURITAN  PREACHING    IN  ENGLAND 

figured  and.  heightened  by  the  grandeur  of 
inherited  associations;  and  if  it  be  so,  the 
Christian  preacher  may  well  be  inspired  with 
a  noble  enthusiasm.  For  as  he  looks  back 
into  the  past  he  finds  himself  standing  in  the 
ranks  with  men  of  the  most  varied  ability, 
and  with  many  of  the  highest  genius,  who 
have  consecrated  their  powers  to  this  high 
and  noble  service.  It  has  been  well  said  that 
there  is  true  stimulus  to  be  gained  from  the 
greatest  masters  of  speech  dealing  with  the 
greatest  of  all  themes  —  God,  the  soul,  eter- 
nity, sin,  salvation,  Christ.  And  it  may  well 
fill  the  humblest  worker  in  the  vineyard  with 
a  just  and  holy  ambition  to  do  his  best  in  this 
high  service,  by  God's  help,  and  to  prove  him- 
self not  unworthy. 

Then,  too,  a  brief  historical  review  not 
merely  of  Preaching,  but  of  Puritan  Preach- 
ing in  England  may  have  one  other  advantage 
in  this  place.  It  may  serve  to  strengthen 
those  bonds  of  brotherhood  between  America 
and  England  which  of  recent  years  have  been 
growing  so  much  closer,  to  the  joy  of  all  right- 
minded  and  God-fearing  men.  For  it  can 
scarcely  fail  to  remind  us  of  our  oneness  as  a 
people,  not  merely  in  our  Anglo-Saxon  speech 
and  lineage,  but  also  in  the  deepest  and  most 


THE  PREACHING   OF  THE  FRIARS  9 

sacred  things  of  all.  The  makers  of  New 
England  were  what  they  were  in  holy  courage 
and  splendid  daring  for  God  and  truth,  because 
before  they  reached  the  New  England  shores 
they  had  sat  side  by  side  in  the  old  parish 
churches  of  England,  and  listened  to  the 
same  Puritan  sermons  with  the  men  who  re- 
mained on  the  other  side  the  sea.  Theologi- 
cally and  spirituall}^  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  and 
Cromwell's  Ironsides  had  a  common  ancestry. 
Some  of  the  best  elements  in  your  national 
life  as  well  as  ours  may  be  traced  to  the  men 
of  strong  faith  and  masculine  intelligence 
who  occupied  the  English  pulpits  at  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

In  the  hope,  therefore,  that  we  may  gain 
something  of  practical  guidance  and  spiritual 
stimulus  as  preachers,  I  will  ask  you  to  go 
back  with  me  into  the  past.  And  while  the 
requirements  of  time  and  space  will  necessi- 
tate that  w^e  keep  to  one  definite  line,  that 
of  Puritan  Preaching  and  Preachers,  I  will 
take  leave  to  give  a  somewhat  wide  latitude 
to  the  term  "  Puritan  "  as  meaning  thereby 
those  preachers  ^vho.  have  laid  more  stress 
upon  Scripture  than  upon  ecclesiastical  in- 
stitutions.    Such  men  there  were  even  before 


10        PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

the  days  of  that  Protestantism  out  of  which 
Puritanism  came.  It  may  be  well,  therefore, 
to  glance  briefly  at  the  Preaching  Friars  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  at  such  men  as  John 
Wickliffe  and  John  Colet,  who  made  Protes- 
tantism possible,  before  we  reach  Puritanism 
proper. 

In  a  remarkable  essay  on  "  The  Tendencies 
of  Religious  Thought  in  England,"  written 
now  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  by  Mark 
Pattison,  then  rector  of  Lincoln  College, 
Oxford,  he  maintained  that  we  ought  to 
apply  the  laws  of  thought  and  the  succession 
of  opinion  to  the  course  of  English  theology. 
He  contended  that  there  is  a  law  of  continuity 
in  these  things  which,  whatever  we  may  wish, 
is  never  broken  off ;  that  the  religious  opin- 
ions prevailing  in  any  given  age  largely 
determine,  either  directly  or  by  way  of 
reaction,  those  prevailing  in  the  age  that 
follows ;  and  that  if  we  would  hold  any 
clue  tln-ough  the  maze  of  the  present  we 
cannot  neglect  those  immediate  agencies  in 
its  production  which  had  their  origin  in  the 
century  previous.  This  being  so,  and  all 
will  admit  that  so  it  is,  we  shall  not  be 
wandering  aimlessly  in  this  historic  review 
of    Puritan   Preaching,    if    first,    by   way   of 


THE  PREACHING   OF   THE  FRIARS  11 

introduction,  we  step  back  for  a  moment  or 
two  and  trace  the  influences  at  work  in  the 
pre-Reformation  Church  which  were  more 
or  less  preparing  the  way  for  it.  If  we  do 
so  we  shall  find,  I  think,  there  were  three  ^~^ 
movements  of  considerable  significance  all 
bearing  on  the  revival  of  the  preaching 
function  in  the  Church  —  the  movement 
initiated  by  Charles  the  Great  at  the  begin-  J 
D ing  j)f ...tlie^ijgtih  century ;  the  ,rise_of  the 
Preaching  Friars  in  the  thirteenth ;  and  the 
propaganda  carried  on  by  Jghjii,  Wlcjkliffe  and 
his  followers  in  the  fourte§tith.  Let  me 
briefly  advert  to  each  of  these. 

Perhaps  the  darkest  period  in  the  history 
of  the  Church  is  that  from  the  eighth  century 
to  the  twelfth,  when  the  living  voice  of  the 
preacher  was  but  rarely  and  feebly  heard,  if 
heard  at  all.  Wherever  missionaries  labored 
they  were  of  necessity  compelled  to  preach  to 
the  people,  but  where  Christianity  had  been 
established  for  some  time,  preaching  was 
almost  entirely  superseded  by  ceremonial  and 
ritual  service.  To  meet  this  evil  condition 
of  things  the  vigorous  mind  of  Charlemagne 
earnestly  engaged  itself,  and  among  his  other 
schemes  for  the  improvement  of  his  Empire 
was  one  for  the  revival  of  preaching  as  the 


12        PURITAN  PRE  ACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

means  of  religious  elevation.  The  institutions 
he  set  forth  on  this  behalf  show  the  import- 
ance he  attached  to  the  office  of  the  preacher, 
and  at  the  same  time  expose  the  miserable 
unfitness  of  the  clergy  generally  for  the  work 
needing  to  be  done.  In  the  records  of  the 
various  Councils  of  the  time,  also,  we  find 
repeated  enactments  issued,  commanding 
bishops  and  presbyters  to  preach  to  the 
people  in  their  own  proper  tongue ;  instructs 
ing  them  also  to  preach  diligently  the 
Catholic  faith  to  all  the  people,  and  them- 
selves to  understand  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and 
expound  it  to  all,  that  each  may  know  what 
to  ask  of  God.  To  help  the  weaker  sort  of 
preachers  the  Emperor  employed  Paul  Win- 
fried  to  make  a  Collection  of  Homilies  from 
the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  "culling  some 
flowers  from  their  most  pleasant  fields ;  "  and 
these  Homilies,  one  hundred  and  seventy-six 
in  number,  were  for  generations  the  main 
source  of  pulpit  instruction  for  all.  The 
clergy,  the  men  most  concerned,  responded 
with  but  little  zeal  to  the  earnestness  of  the 
Emperor.  Some  of  them  idly  read  the  pas- 
sage from  the  Fathers  in  the  original  without 
taking  the  trouble  to  translate  it  into  the  lan- 
guage of  the  people,  as  it  was  intended  and 


THE  PREACHING   OF   THE  FRIARS  13 

ordered  they  should.  With  but  few  excep- 
tions the  religious  teachers  of  the  time  occu- 
pied themselves  with  mere  ceremonies  and 
superstitious  legends  of  the  idlest  sort.  Such 
preaching  as  there  was  consisted  for  the  most 
part  of  mystical  and  allegorical  interpretations 
of  Scripture.  The  preacher  who  could  only 
give  two  or  three  meanings  to  a  text  was 
looked  upon  as  rather  a  weak  brother.  The 
clerical  homiletical  canon  prescribed  at  least 
seven  and  if  possible  eight  meanings  for  every 
passage.  Besides  the  literal  meaning  they 
felt  themselves  bound  to  give,  in  addition: 
the  allegorical  or  parabolic ;  the  tropological 
or  etymological ;  the  anagogic  or  analogical ; 
the  typical  or  exemplar ;  the  anaphoric  or 
proportional ;  and  the  mystical  or  apocalyptic. 
As  William  Tyndale  said  of  such  men  in 
later  days,  they  divided  the  scripture  into  so 
many  senses  that  the  literal  sense  had  become 
nothing  at  all.  "Twenty  doctors,"  said  he, 
*'  expound  one  text  twenty  ways,  and  with  an 
antetheme  of  half  an  inch  some  of  them  draw 
a  thread  nine  days  long."  It  was  a  curious 
result  of  their  rigid  belief  in  the  verbal  in- 
spiration of  the  sacred  text  that  it  led  them 
into  a  condition  of  mind  in  which  they  practi- 
cally ignored  the  Scriptures  altogether. 


14        PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

At  tlie  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century 
we  come  to  one  of  the  most  interesting  periods 
in  the  history  of  Latin  Christianity,  previous 
to  the  Reformation  —  the  time  of  the  rise  of 
the  Mendicant  Orders  of  Preaching  Friars,- 
Dominican  and  Franciscan.  Among  the 
regular  clergy  actual  preaching  had  fallen 
into  disuse.  In  theory  it  had  come  to  be 
regarded  as  the  special  privilege  of  the 
bishops,  and  there  were  but  few  of  these  who 
had  either  the  gift,  the  inclination,  or  the 
leisure  to  preach  even  in  the  cathedi-al  cities. 
In  the  rest  of  their  dioceses  their  presence 
was  but  occasional;  and  then  only  in  the 
shape  of  a  progress  or  visitation  of  pomp  and 
form  rather  than  for  any  purpose  of  ■  popular 
instruction.  For  the  people  the  services  of 
the  Church  took  the  form  of  ceremonial  and 
the  only  general  teaching  was  the  ritual. 

The  earlier  monastic  orders,  the  monks 
who  preceded  the  friars,  withdrew  themselves 
from  an  evil  world  into  the  seclusion  of  the 
cloister,  leaving  that  world  to  go  on  its  way 
while  they  devoted  all  their  care  to  the  salva- 
tion of  their  own  souls,  as  the  one  great  end 
of  life.  It  was  their  business  to  be  the  salt 
of  the  earth,  but  they  were  more  concerned  to 
guard   the   salt   from   losing   its   savor  than 


THE  PREACHING    OF  THE  FRIARS  15 

that  the  earth  should  be  sweetened  by  it. 
Meantime  while  the  sacerdotalists  within 
the  Church  were  sleeping,  there  were  anti- 
sacerdotalists  outside  who  were  preparing  to 
give  them  trouble  and  rouse  them  from  their 
slumbers.  Secret  forces  were  at  work,  and 
soon  a  cry  of  distress  arose  from  the  clergy 
that  heretics  outside  the  Church  were  by 
their  teacliing  drawing  the  people  away  from 
them.  There  were  those  connected  with  this 
revolutionary  movement  who  held  to  the 
creeds  of '  the  Church,  while  rejecting  its 
ritual,  and  repudiating  the  sacerdotal  au- 
thority of  the  clergy.  Bernard  found  "the 
churches  of  Toulouse  without  people,  the 
people  without  priests,  the  priests  without 
respect."  There  were  many  who  rejected 
the  whole  hierarchical  and  ritual  system  as 
well  as  the  priesthood.  The  virtuous  lay- 
man, said  they,  is  a  priest,  while  the  sanctity 
of  the  priest  is  not  in  his  priesthood  but  in 
his  life,  and  transubstantiation  in  the  Euchar- 
ist takes  place  not  in  the  hands  of  the  priest 
but  in  the  heart  of  the  believer. 

It  was  at  this  juncture  when  torpor  had 
seized  upon  the  Church  within  and  revolt 
was  raised  against  her  without,  that  simul- 
taneously and  without  concert,  in  two  differ- 


16        PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

ent  countries  the  Friars  Preachers,  Dominican 
and  Franciscan  entered  upon  their  self-deny- 
ing career.  While  not  unconscious  under 
how  many  restrictions  and  with  how  many 
reservations  the  description  may  be  allowed 
to  stand  I  am  disposed  to  describe  them  as 
Puritans  before  Puritan  times.  Gathered 
from  every  country  and  speaking  therefore 
various  languages  and  dialects,  Christendom 
was  soon  overspread  by  a  host  of  zealous, 
active,  devoted  men  whose  great  aim  was  the 
religious  instruction  and  elevation  of  the 
people.  While  within  monastic  rules  and 
bound  by  the  common  vows  of  chastity,  pov- 
erty, and  obedience,  seclusion  in  a  walled- 
up  monastery  was  no  part  of  their  discipline. 
They  were  bent,  not  on  fleeing  the  world,  but 
on  subjugating  or  winning  it.  Their  work  was 
among  their  fellow-men  in  village  and  ham- 
let, in  town  and  city,  in  market  and  camp. 
One  of  their  founders,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi, 
has  been  called  the  John  Wesley  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  and  he  and  his  followers  went 
forth  without  purse  or  scrip,  relying  entirely 
on  the  voluntary  principle  for  maintenance. 
The  apostles  of  poverty  and  pity  and  an  all- 
embracing  love,  they  went  forth  by  two  and 
two  to  build  up  the  ruined  Church  of  God. 


THE  PREACHING   OF   THE  FRIARS         17 

Moving  about  among  the  people  and  ask- 
ing to  be  allowed  to  help  them,  like  their 
jNIaster  they  had  compassion  on  the  multitude 
and  began  to  teach  them  many  things.  Com- 
passion is  the  strength  of  the  true  teacher, 
and  instruction  is  a  work  of  true  compassion. 
Above  all  things,  these  men  aimed  at  being 
effective  preachers,  and  in  the  course  of  the 
movement  we  find  Hubert  de  Roraanis,  Gen- 
eral of  the  Dominican  Order,  issuing  a  work, 
entitled  De  Eruditione  Prcedicatorum,  in  which 
he  speaks  of  preaching  as  above  the  Mass  and 
all  liturgical  services.  "  For,"  says  he,  "  of 
the  Latin  Liturgy  the  laity  understand  noth- 
ing ;  but  they  can  understand  the  sermon ; 
and  hence  b}^  preaching  God  is  glorified  in  a 
clearer  and  more  open  manner  than  by  any 
other  act  of  worship. "  This  work  of  Hubert's 
on  preaching  may  be  described  as  epoch-mak- 
ing, appearing  as  it  did  after  long  centuries 
of  comparative  silence.  It  sets  forth  to  the 
members  of  the  Order  the  obligfation  under 
which  they  were  placed  to  preach  the  Gospel ; 
the  grasdty  and  dignity  of  this  great  work; 
and  the  qualifications  necessary  for  its  effective 
discharge.  Of  all  spiritual  exercises  in  which 
monks  employed  themselves,  preaching  was 
set  forth  as  the  highest,  and   whoever  pos- 

2 


18        PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

sessed  the  talent  for  it,  was  bound  to  culti- 
vate it  to  the  utmost.  Hubert  points  out 
that  when  once  Christ  had  commenced  preach- 
ing, He  spent  His  whole  life  at  that  employ- 
ment; and  from  this  he  argued  what  great 
effects  might  be  produced  in  their  own  times ; 
and  maintained  that  the  crowds  who  followed 
some  of  those  who  did  preach  showed  that  the 
people  were  ready  to  receive  the  spoken  mes- 
sage of  truth. 

While  thus  urging  the  importance  of 
preaching  he  also  set  before  the  members  of 
the  Order  the  most  effective  way  of  doing  it, 
and  the  best  way  of  making  the  most  of  them- 
selves as  preachers.  "Though,"  says  he, 
"  the  talent  for  preaching  is  obtained  through 
the  special  gift  of  God,  yet  the  wise  preacher 
will  do  his  own  part  of  the  work,  and  dili- 
gently study  that  he  may  preach  correctly." 
He  warns  the  brethren  against  making  a  mere 
display  of  their  own  ingenuity  and  eloquence, 
as,  for  example,  deriving  the  theme  of  their 
discourse  from  a  text  altogether  foreign  to  the 
matter  in  hand.  Such  devices,  he  thinks,  are 
more  likely  to  excite  derision  than  promote 
edification.  As  for  those  who  looked  more 
to  fine  words  than  true  and  noble  thoughts, 
they  seemed  to  him  to  be  like  people  who 


THE  PREACHING   OF   THE  FRIARS  19 

were  more  concerned  to  display  their  beauti- 
ful dishes  than  to  provide  food  for  their 
guests.  Looking  through  this  book  of  his, 
we  find,  as  we  might  expect,  that  human 
nature  was  very  much  the  same  then  as  now. 
Then  as  now  there  were  impressible  and  shal- 
low hearers  who  had  no  root  in  themselves. 
Many  heard  the  word  of  God  with  great 
delight,  but  it  was  only  as  if  they  were  listen- 
ing to  a  beautiful  song.  Others  were  kin- 
dled to  momentary  glow  to  little  purpose,  for 
after  the  sermon  they  became  immediately 
cold  again.  We  find  too  from  Hubert's  book 
that  the  ancestors  of  some  of  our  present-day 
critics  were  already  to  the  fore.  Others,  said 
he,  are,  or  think  they  are,  good  judges  of 
preaching.  He  has  spoken  well  or  ill,  say 
they.  Shaking  their  wise  heads  over  the  ser- 
mon, they  pronounced  it  too  long  or  too  short, 
too  abstruse  or  too  trivial.  But  though  these 
illuminati  of  the  thirteenth  century  never 
failed  to  criticise  the  sermon,  there  was  one 
thing  he  said  they  never  did  —  they  never 
applied  what  was  said  to  their  own  lives. 

It  serves  fiu'ther  to  illustrate  the  awakened 
interest  in  oral  and  vernacular  teaching  in 
those  times  when  we  find  the  abbot  of  a  mon- 
astery, Guibert  of  Novigentum,  also  writing 


20        PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

a  book  on  the  best  method  of  preaching,  and 
declaring  it  to  be  the  general  duty  of  all 
Christians,  and  not  of  bishops  only,  to  labor 
for  the  advancement  of  the  Christian  life  in 
others,  according  to  the  proportion  of  each 
man's  knowledge  and  gifts.  In  this  work  he 
urges  the  preacher  to  have  respect  to  the 
wants  of  the  simple  and  uneducated,  as  well 
as  the  better  educated,  and  to  strive  in  his 
preaching  to  unite  depth  with  lucidity  and 
plainness  of  meaning.  Both  intellect  and 
heart  should  be  united  in  this  great  work. 
Also  says  he :  "  Let  the  sermon  be  preceded 
by  prayer ;  so  that  the  soul,  fired  with  divine 
love,  may  utter  forth  what  it  feels  of  God 
with  glowing  words  ;  so  that  the  preacher,  as 
he  burns  in  his  own  heart,  may  enkindle  a 
flame  also  in  the  hearts  of  his  hearers."  He 
would  have  the  preacher  enter  into  the  very 
souls  of  men,  track  sin  through  all  its  meshes 
of  deceitfulness  and  show  them  to  themselves. 
"  The  preacher,"  he  says,  "  should  treat  con- 
cerning the  motions  of  the  inner  man.  This 
was  a  thing  so  common  to  the  experience  of 
all  men  that  such  a  sermon  should  be  ob- 
scure to  none."  Every  man  could  read  in  his 
heart,  written  as  it  were  in  a  book,  what  the 
preacher  told  him   of   the  various   kinds  of 


THE  PREACniNG  OF    THE  FR/ARS  21 

temptation.  No  sermon  he  held  to  be  more 
useful  than  that  which  showed  men  to  them- 
selves, and  led  back  to  the  secret  recesses  of 
their  own  hearts  those  who,  by  the  distraction 
of  outward  things  had  become  strangers  to 
themselves,  presenting  their  own  selves  as 
in  a  mirror  before  their  own  eyes.  Heart- 
experience  on  the  part  of  the  preacher  is,  he 
says,  his  best  equipment  for  speaking  to  the 
hearts  of  others.  As  he  who  has  been  in  the 
heat  and  fierceness  of  the  battle  knows  more 
about  it  than  he  who  has  only  heard  about  it 
from  others,  so  is  it  in  spiritual  warfare.  He 
whose  own  deepest  inward  consciousness  bears 
witness  to  the  words  he  speaks  will  be  able  to 
deal  with  spiritual  conflicts  with  an  altogether 
different  sort  of  authority  from  the  man  who 
only  repeats  what  he  has  heard,  and  he  can 
lay  his  finger  on  the  precise  inward  details  of 
the  soul. 

It  is  clear  from  the  facts  which  have  come 
down  to  us  that  great  moral  and  spiritual 
effects  resulted  from  the  preaching  of  the 
Friars  in  the  earlier,  that  is,  the  better  days 
of  the  movement.  We  read,  for  example,  of 
the  Franciscan  Berthold,  a  sort  of  John  the 
Baptist  preacher  of  repentance  in  the  cities 
of  Augsburg  and  Regensburg.     From  Thu- 


22        PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

ringia  to  Bavaria  and  far  into  Switzerland  he 
travelled  as  a  herald  of  the  truth.  First  in 
one  city  and  then  in  another  he  was  invited 
to  preach  till  at  length  no  church  was  large 
enough  to  hold  the  multitudes  who  came  to 
hear  him.  Many  a  time  in  the  open  fields  he 
preached  with  more  than  sixty  thousand 
people  gathered  round  him.  Fearlessly  re- 
buking the  vices  of  all  ranks  in  society,  high 
and  low,  rich  and  poor,  many  were  conscience- 
stricken  under  his  searching  words  and  came 
to  him,  as  the  like  sort  came  to  John  the 
Baptist,  freely  confessing  their  sins. 
)  The  Preaching  Friars  soon  passed  over  into 
England  with  which  we  are  now  more  imme- 
diately concerned,  —  the  Dominicans,  a  party 
of  thirteen,  arriving  in  1220,  and  the  Francis- 
cans, nine  in  number,  in  1224.  So  completely 
did  they  revolutionize  the  mode  of  popular 
address  and  make  their  way  to  the  heart  of  the 
people  that  within  the  space  of  thirty  years 
the  nine  Franciscans  had  multiplied  to  1242 
and  were  possessed  of  forty-nine  convents  in 
various  parts  of  the  country.  In  England, 
as  on  the  continent,  the  Church  had  stood 
coldly  aloof  from  the  mass  of  the  people,  a 
favorite  illustration  with  churchmen  being 
that  the   clergy  and   laity  were   as   distinct 


THE  PREACHING    OF  THE  FRIARS  23 

elements  as  wine  and  water.  The  Preaching 
Friars  changed  all  that.  Getting  right  in 
among  the  people  whom  the  Church  had  so 
long  neglected,  they  adopted  a  style  of  ad- 
dress more  suited  to  their  audiences,  appeal- 
ing as  it  did  more  directly  to  the  feelings, 
being  more  popular  and  more  dramatic.  "^  The 
indolent,  lifeless  secular  clergy  resented  the 
intrusion  of  these  new-comers  whom  they  re- 
garded as  mere  fanatics  and  troublesome  in- 
novators. The  charges,  however,  which  they 
brought  against  the  Friars  tend  rather  to  exalt 
them  in  our  opinion  than  otherwise.  They 
accused  them  of  studying  eloquence  and  the 
art  of  rhetoric  in  the  composition  of  their 
sermons ;  of  transgressing  the  precept  of  the 
Apostle  who  laid  it  down  that  preaching  was 
not  to  be  with  wisdom  of  words ;  of  making 
their  addresses  agreeable  to  the  people ;  and 
finally  they  said  that  by  mixing  with  the  people 
as  they  did,  they  dragged  down  the  dignity  of 
the  clerical  office.  Better  be  select  and  genteel, 
thought  they,  even  though  you  die  of  gentility. 
One  significant  fact  about  this  thirteenth 
century  movement  is  that  while  aiming  at 
what  some  would  call  mere  popular  preach- 
ing it  allied  itself  with  an  enlightened  love 
of  learning.     The  scientific  speculative  spirit 


24        PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

of  tliat  time,  so  far  as  it  was  imbued  with 
religious  feeling,  was  powerfully  influenced 
by  leading  Franciscans  and  Dominicans.  As 
in  the  first  century  the  greatest  missionary, 
the  Apostle  Paul,  was  also  the  greatest  theo- 
logian, so  in  the  thirteenth  century  the  most 
effective  teachers  of  the  people  were  the 
most  ardent  metaphj^sicians  and  theologians. 
Among  them  we  find  the  great  schoolmen 
of  the  continent  —  Albertus  Magnus,  Bona- 
ventura  and  Thomas  Aquinas  ;  also  the  great 
English  schoolmen  —  Alexander  of  Hales, 
John  Duns  Scotus  and  Roger  Bacon.  The 
Franciscans  had  true  poets  among  them. 
Thomas  of  Celano  was  the  author  of  the 
terrible,  sublime  hymn,  Dies  Irae  ;  and  Jaco- 
pone,  the  greatest  poet  of  the  Franciscan 
school,  endowed  with  true  poetic  genius 
and  penetrated  with  the  fire  of  creative  pas- 
sion, composed  the  celebrated  Stabat  Mater. 
Then,  too,  when  we  visit  the  memorable 
monastery  of  San  Marco  in  Florence  we 
cannot  forget  that  in  later  years  Fra  Angel- 
ico,  the  gentle  painter  whose  atmosphere 
seemed  to  be  innocence,  holiness,  and  purity, 
was  a  Dominican,  as  was  also  Savonarola,  the 
great  Florentine  preacher  of  righteousness 
to  an  ag-e  of  dissolute  worldliness. 


THE  PREACHING    OF   THE   FRIARS  25 

The  late  J\Ir.  Brewer,  a  scholar  deeply- 
versed  in  the  knowledge  of  original  sources 
of  English  history  earned  our  gratitude  by 
bringing  to  light  the  remarkable  series  of 
documents  published  under  the  title  of  Mo- 
numenta  Franciscana.  In  an  introduction  to 
that  work  he  asks :  "  Is  it  not  remarkable 
that  the  Friars,  the  most  ardent  upholders 
of  scholastic  theology,  were  precisely  the  men 
who  constituted  the  most  popular  preachers 
of  the  age  ?  that  their  sermons  are  far  from 
being  dry  expositions  of  scholastic  philoso- 
phy? that  instead  of  being  appeals  to  the 
reason  against  authority,  they  contain  the 
most  direct  appeals  to  the  imagination  and 
the  feelings  of  the  people  to  whom  they 
were  addressed?"  It  is  certainly  a  note- 
worthy fact  for  all  time  and  for  every^  gen- 
eration of  preachers  that  in  the  case  of  the 
Friars  we  have  the  most  effective  popular 
preaching  of  the  thirteenth  century  associ- 
ated with  the  best  learning  to  Avhich  the 
human  mind  had  attained  in  that  century. 
The  combination  must  ever  be  maintained. 
Mere  popular  appeals  are  apt  in  time  to  be- 
come shallow  and  evanescent ;  on  the  other 
hand,  mere  scholarship  without  broad  popu- 
lar sympathies  becomes  dry  and  powerless. 


26        PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

The  combination  of  the  two  is  the  ideal  for 
every  preacher  to  aim  at  in  his  work.  The 
truest  simplicity,  the  most  effective  putting  of 
the  revelations  of  God  may  best  be  associated 
with  the  most  solid  learning  attainable  by  man. 

I  am  not  giving  you  a  history  of  the  Friars ; 
if  I  were  I  should  have  to  admit  that  the 
Franciscan  and  Dominican  orders,  like  the 
older  monastic  orders  before  them,  became 
corrupted  by  the  very  wealth  they  professed 
at  the  outset  to  abjure.  They  fell  from  their 
high  estate,  the  gold  became  dim,  the  most 
fine  gold  changed.  We  cannot  dwell  on  the 
utter  decay  of  their  ideal,  or  speak  of  the 
fetters  of  stupid  servitude  which  in  a  later 
period  of  their  history  they  imposed  on  the 
freedom  of  thought  and  science.  We  can 
only  mourn  over  it.  It  has  been  well  said 
that,  had  not  ambition  corrupted  them,  they 
might  have  revolutionized  society,  and  been 
the  precursors  of  a  far  gentler  and  more 
spiritual  Reformation  than  that  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  But,  the  salt  having  lost  its 
savor,  how  could  it  preserve  the  world  ? 

But  though  the  ardor  of  popular  sym- 
pathy displayed  by  the  Friars  at  first  died 
down  under  the  corrupting  influence  of 
wealth  and  sensual  indulgence ;  and  though 


TEE  PREACHING   OF  THE  FRIARS         27 

their  scholastic  philosophy  dwindled  at  last 
into  mere  meaningless  and  wearisome  subtle- 
ties, falling  by  the  weight  of  its  own 
dialectic,  they  were  not  without  great  and 
lasting  influence.  Taking  their  best  days, 
that  is,  the  first  twenty-five  years  of  their 
history,  we  can  see  how  they  form  a  link 
between  modern  and  mediaeval  times.  The 
unreservedness  with  which  as  Schoolmen  they 
ranged  tlirough  every  region  of  metaphysics 
and  divinity  led  in  turn  to  equal  freedom 
of  discussion,  equal  unreservedness  on  politi- 
cal lines  of  thought.  Paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  Domini- 
can and  Franciscan  orders,  established  for 
the  purpose  of  strengthening  the  Papacy,  pre- 
pared the  way  in  no  slight  degree  for  that 
Reformation  which  shattered  the  Papacy. 
With  truth  it  may  be  said  that  even  John 
Wickliffe  himself,  the  Morning  Star  of  the 
Reformation,  as  he  has  been  called,  is  the 
genuine  descendant  of  the  Friars  Preachers, 
turning  their  wisdom  against  themselves,  and 
carrying  out  the  principles  he  had  learnt 
from  them  to  their  legitimate  conclusions, 
both  ecclesiastical  and  political.  The  con- 
tinuity of  history  may  sometimes  be  traced 
along  the  most  unexpected  lines. 


28        PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

The  preaching  of  the  Friars  during  the 
time  they  were  most  active  and  zealous  not 
only  produced  its  own  direct  effect  on  the 
popular  mind,  but,  by  way  of  rivalry,  it  had 
the  effect  of  stirring  up  the  bishops  and 
clergy  themselves.  The  S3aiod  of  Oxford  of 
1223  enjoined  the  clergy  "not  to  be  dumb 
dogs,  but  with  salutary  bark  to  drive  away 
the  disease  of  spiritual  wolves  from  the  flock." 
The  Bishop  of  Coventry  required  all  his 
clergy  to  address  their  people  assembled  on 
the  Lord's  day,  or  other  festivals,  in  certain 
words  which  constituted  a  rhetorical  sermon 
on  the  seven  deadly  sins.  The  Bishop  of 
Lincoln  gave  directions  to  his  clergy  to 
preach  on  Sundays,  and  gave  them  the  heads 
of  their  teaching ;  and  the  Bishop  of  Exeter 
drew  up  a  similar  book  for  his  diocese  of 
which  he  required  every  parish  to  have  a 
copy  under  penalty  of  a  fine.  Canon  X,  of 
the  Provincial  Synod  of  Lambeth  of  1281 
A.  D.,  gives  us  some  insight  into  the  sort  of 
teaching  prevailing  in  the  Church  itself,  half 
a  century  later  than  the  coming  of  the  Friars. 
The  preamble  first  speaks  of  the  ignorance 
of  priests  and  the  consequent  debasement  of 
the  people.  For  the  remedy  of  such  mis- 
chiefs, the  Canon  goes  on  to  say :  "  We  ordain 


THE   PREACHING   OF  THE  FRIARS  29 

that  every  priest  who  presides  over  a  people 
do  four  times  a  year,  that  is,  once  in  each 
quarter  of  the  year,  on  one  or  more  festival 
days,  either  by  himself  or  by  another,  ex- 
pound to  the  people  in  popular  language, 
without  any  fanciful  subtleties  the  fourteen 
Articles  of  Faith,  the  Ten  Commandments 
of  the  Lord,  the  two  Evangelical  precepts  of 
Charity,  the  seven  works  of  Mercy,  the  seven 
deadly  sins  with  their  progeny,  the  seven 
principal  virtues,  and  the  seven  sacraments 
of  Grace." 

It  is  during  this  period  of  the  Church's 
history  we  come  upon  two  or  three  manu- 
script specimens  of  certain  Metrical  Homilies, 
which  took  the  place  of  sermons,  and  which 
there  is  reason  to  believe  were  extensively 
used  in  the  churches,  especially  in  the  north- 
ern counties.  They  are  interesting  as  giving 
the  English  popular  speech  of  five  or  six 
centuries  ago ;  as  among  the  earliest  literary 
efforts  of  the  period  immediately  preceding 
that  of  Chaucer ;  as  illustrating  the  religious 
life  and  habits  of  a  time  long  gone  by ;  and 
as  being  the  only  remains  extant  of  mediaeval 
popular  preaching  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
As  respects  the  substance  of  these  Homilies 
they  consist  of  portions  of  Scripture  selected 


30        P  UK  IT  AN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

from  the  Gospels.  The  homilist  first  goes 
over  the  narrative  with  such  reflections  as 
may  best  convey  the  practical  lesson  to  his 
hearers,  and  then  enforces  some  point  of  doc- 
trine or  practice  by  a  "narracio,"  that  is,  a 
story  taken  from  the  Gospels  themselves,  or 
from  ecclesiastical  legends,  or  the  popular 
tales  of  the  day.  Their  peculiarity  lies,  of 
course,  in  their  being  in  metrical  form,  though 
this  was  not  altogether  a  new  departure,  since 
metrical  versions  of  Scripture  had  been 
known  in  England  from  the  time  of  Caedmon 
in  the  seventh  century  onwards.  While  there 
is  much  in  these  Homilies  which  is  coarse 
and  foolish  there  is  much  also  of  sound 
gospel  truth  and  wholesome  moral  teaching. 
They  contain  faithful,  pointed  rebukes  of 
evildoers  without  respect  of  persons,  and 
earnest  calls  to  righteousness  of  life ;  while 
of  the  grace,  condescension  and  saving  power 
of  our  Lord,  and  of  the  need  of  faith  in 
Him  and  repentance  toward  God,  the  various 
writers  of  the  Homilies  speak  strongly,  fre- 
quently and  clearly. 

The  preaching  of  the  Friars  was  followed 
by  the  zealous  propaganda  of  John  Wickliffe 
and  his  successors  ;  who,  while  working  on 
much  the  same  lines  as  the  Friars,  set  forth 


THE  PREACHING   OF  THE  FRIARS  Z\ 

a  more  scriptural  and  evangelical  faith.  This 
Lollard  movement  was  instinct  with  life. 
As  preachers  they  went  forth  through  the 
realm  from  county  to  county,  and  from 
town  to  town;  preaching  from  day  to  day, 
not  only  in  churches  and  churchyards,  but 
also  in  open  market-place  and  public  thorough- 
fare. The  life  thus  created,  under  the  bless- 
ing of  heaven  never  really  died  out ;  and  it 
may  be  safely  maintained  that  without  the 
Lollards  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  Refor- 
mation of  the  sixteenth  would  not  have 
been  possible.  Long  after  Wickliffe  himself 
had  passed  away,  as  John  Foxe  tells  us, 
"there  were  secret  multitudes  who  tasted 
and  followed  the  sweetness  of  God's  Holy 
Word,  and  whose  fervent  zeal  may  appear 
by  their  sitting  up  all  night  in  reading  and 
hearing."  The  fruit  of  the  labors  of  those 
godly,  self-denying  preachers  was  to  be  seen 
in  after  days  in  what  is  ever  the  true 
preacher's  highest  reward  —  in  the  "  earnest 
seekings,  the  busy  zeal,  the  watchings,  the 
sweet  assemblies,  the  love  and  concord,  and 
the  godly  living  "  of  those  who  heard  them. 


II 


JOHN  COLET  AND  THE  PREACHERS 
OF  THE  REFORMATION 


LECTURE  II 

JOHN  COLET  AND  THE  PREACHERS 
OF  THE  REFORMATION 

IN  the  lecture  of  yesterday  I  asked  you  to 
review  with  me  the  influence  exerted  by 
the  preaching  of  the  Friars  —  Franciscan  and 
Dominican,  and  by  the  earnest  propaganda  of 
Wickliffe  and  the  Preachers  he  sent  forth. 
This  brings  us  to  the  border-land  of  the 
Reformation  time  in  England.  Before  we 
quite  pass  within  that  time  and  onward  to  the 
Puritan  period  which  followed,  there  is  one 
man  who  stood  midway  between  the  old 
time  and  the  new  —  John  Colet  the  Oxford 
Reformer  —  whose  work  and  influence  de- 
serve our  careful  attention. 

The  effect  upon  Europe  of  the  taking  of 
Constantinople  by  the  Turks  in  1453,  has 
often  been  pointed  out.  Dark  were  the 
prophecies  and  dire  the  forebodings  which 
followed  that  event,  and  which  there  was 
much  in  the  previous  histor}^  of  the  Moslem 
to  justify.  To  the  men  of  that  time  it 
seemed  as  if  the  end  of  the  world  had  come, 


36         PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

or  at  least,  that  tlie  death-knell  of  civilization 
had  sounded.  Yet,  strangely  enough,  that 
which  was  feared  would  be  the  destruction 
of  learning  proved  to  be  its  revival.  For, 
fleeing  before  the  ruthless  Turk,  scholars  of 
great  reputation  migrated  from  the  East  to 
the  West,  bringing  their  manuscripts  with 
them.  Then,  too,  as  God  so  willed  it  —  for 
it  is  He  who  determines  the  time  when  new 
and  powerful  forces  shall  enter  into  the  life 
of  nations  — just  then  came  the  invention  of 
the  printing  press,  bringing  within  the  reach 
of  the  many  the  great  works  of  literature 
once  only  accessible  to  the  few.  In  this  way 
Italy  became  once  more  the  seat  of  learning ; 
and  the  city  of  Florence  especially,  under  the 
patronage  of  a  De  Medici,  drew  to  itself 
the  younger  and  more  enthusiastic  spirits  of 
the  new  time  now  dawning.  Among  these 
was  John  Colet,  an  Oxford  student,  the  son 
of  a  wealthy  London  merchant,  and  the  friend 
of  Erasmus  and  Sir  Thomas  More. 

He  seems  to  have  left  Oxford  about  1493, 
and  travelled  to  Italy  at  a  time  when  in 
Rome  the  crimes  of  Pope  Alexander  VI.  and 
the  Borgias  were  the  scandal  of  Europe  on 
the  one  side;  and  when  in  Florence  the 
powerful  preaching  of  Savonarola  set  all  men 


THE  PREACHERS    OF   THE  REFORMATION     37 

thinking'  of  the  evil  of  the  times  on  the  other. 
We  have  now  no  means  of  knowing  how 
the  change  was  brought  about  while  he  was 
abroad,  but  we  do  know  that  John  Colet, 
who  while  he  was  at  Oxford  had  "devoured 
Cicero  "  and  diligently  read  Plato  and  Ploti- 
nus,  now  "gave  himself  up  entirely  to  the 
study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures."  Erasmus,  who 
tells  us  this,  tells  us  also  that  alongside  this 
main  piu'suit  he  paid  diligent  attention  to 
such  chronicles  and  English  classics  as  he 
could  lay  liold  of,  with  the  object  of  master- 
ing their  style,  and  so  preparing  himself  for 
the  great  work  of  preaching  the  Gospel  in 
Engfland.  After  beino^  abroad  some  three 
years  he  returned  to  Oxford  in  1496,  and 
thougfh  not  in  Orders  and  without  a  doctor's 
degree,  he  astonished  the  University  circles 
by  announcing  a  free  course  of  lectures  on 
St.  Paul's  Epistles. 

In  those  days  a  venture  like  this  was  new, 
required  courage  and  created  a  stir.  Doctors 
and  abbots,  men  of  all  ranks  and  titles,  were 
seen  mingling  with  the  students  in  the  lecture 
hall ;  and  ha\dng  come  once  they  came  again 
and  again,  "bringing  their  note-books  with 
them."  The  venture  was  entirely  successful 
and  there  were  various  reasons  why  it  should 


38         PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

be.  First  of  all  the  lecturer  was  endowed 
with  that  clear  and  vigorous  mode  of  speech 
which  always  tells.  In  one  of  his  letters 
Erasmus  says  to  Colet :  "  You  say  what  you 
mean,  and  mean  what  you  say.  Your  words 
have  birth  in  your  heart,  not  on  your  lips. 
They  follow  your  thoughts  instead  of  your 
thoughts  being  shaped  by  them.  You  have 
the  happy  art  of  expressing  with  ease  what 
others  can  hardly  express  with  the  greatest 
labor."  The  toil  of  mastering  the  English 
style  from  the  English  classics  had  gone  first, 
and  this  facility  which  seemed  so  natural  and 
so  easy  was  the  outcome  of  th-e  toil.  But 
while  from  this  letter  of  Erasmus  we  learn 
one  of  the  secrets  of  Colet's  success,  it  was 
not  the  only  one.  For,  for  the  first  time  he 
made  the  Bible  to  these  men  a  living  book. 
Taking  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  and  show- 
ing the  logical  sequence  of  thought,  the  con- 
nection of  part  with  part,  he  made  them  feel 
the  spirit  of  the  whole ;  so  that  they  were 
conscious  not  merely  of  being  in  contact  with 
the  Epistle,  but  still  more  of  being  in  contact 
with  the  man  who  wrote  it.  More  after  the 
manner  of  the  nineteenth  century  than  the 
fifteenth,  he  brought  out  the  personal  traits 
of  the  apostle's  writings,  —  his  "  vehemence  of 


THE  PREACHERS   OF   THE  REFORMATION     39 

speaking,"  which  did  not  give  him  time  to 
perfect  his  sentences ;  the  rare  prudence  and 
tact  with  which  he  balanced  his  words  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  different  classes  ad- 
dressed; his  "modest}^,"  "toleration,"  self- 
denial  and  consideration  for  others ;  and  the 
reality  of  application  there  was  in  many  of 
his  sajdngs  to  the  circumstances  and  needs  of 
the  time.  He  stepped  aside,  too,  from  the 
old  time-worn  ruts  of  those  who  furbished  up 
authorities  and  illustrations  merely  from  the 
Church  fathers.  He  sought  these  in  the 
broad  fields  of  the  best  literature  and  from 
the  scholars  of  his  own  time.  The  men  who 
listened  to  him  felt  that  he  made  the  Bible  to 
be  altogether  a  new  thing  to  them,  a  living 
force  entering  into  the  current  of  their  life. 

After  carrying  on  this  work  from  1496  to 
1505  Colet  Avas  made  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  and 
the  sphere  of  his  influence  was  thus  trans- 
ferred from  Oxford  to  London.  By  this 
change  his  work  was  made  to  tell  more 
directly  upon  the  people  at  large,  for  in  the 
same  earnest  spirit  that  work  was  still  con- 
tinued. The  chief  citizens  of  London  filled 
the  places  round  his  desk  hitherto  filled  by 
University  men.  While  there  was  a  change 
of  place  there  was  no  change  of  purpose,  or 


40         PURITAN  PREACHING   JN  ENGLAND 

of  method  either.  The  only  change  there 
was  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  now  seemed 
drawn  rather  to  the  Gospels  than  to  the 
Epistles.  The  place  in  his  mind  hitherto 
filled  by  Paul  was  now  yielded  more  com- 
pletely to  the  Person  and  teachings  of  Christ. 
But  his  method  was  the  same,  for  his  dis- 
courses were  not  upon  isolated  texts,  but 
continuous  expositions  of  the  facts  of  the 
Saviour's  life  and  of  the  substance  of  His 
teaching.  That  which  had  made  the  Bible  a 
new  and  fascinating  book  to  the  men  of  lit- 
erature in  Oxford,  made  it  a  new  and  fascin- 
ating book  for  the  men  of  business  in  London 
also. 

Is  there  not  in  these  facts  a  certain  suggest- 
iveness  for  ourselves  ?  Colet's  method  of  so 
dealing  w4th  the  Scriptures  as  to  make  them 
living  books  to  the  men  of  his  time,  bringing 
out  the  richness  and  fulness  of  their  teaching, 
starts  again  the  question,  often  started  be- 
fore, as  to  the  desirability  or  otherwise  of 
continuous  expository  preaching.  One  can 
only  say  that  it  depends  how  a  man  does  it 
as  to  whether  it  is  desirable  or  not.  It  may 
be  made  a  refuge  for  idleness,  the  man  flitting 
over  many  things  because  he  has  not  thought 
out  one  thing ;  or,  it  may  be  the  outcome  of 


THE   rREACHERS   OF    THE  REFORMATION     41 

the  best  work  a  man  can  do.  It  has  been 
objected  that  exposition  of  continuous  sort 
tends  to  unutterable  tedium  and  weariness, 
and  men  will  point  you  to  a  folio  volume  of 
Arthur  Hildersani's,  for  example,  containing 
a  hundred  and  eight  lectures  on  the  fourth 
chapter  of  John's  Gospel,  and  to  another 
folio  of  his  containing  a  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  lectures  on  the  nineteen  verses  of  the 
51st  Psalm ;  and  they  will  tell  you  that 
Joseph  Caryl  began  his  Exposition  of  Job 
with  eight  hundred  hearers  and  ended  with 
only  eight,  the  patience,  of  Ids  audience  not 
being  equal  to  that  of  the  patriarch  on  whose 
experiences  he  descanted  so  long.  The  late 
Mr.  Spurgeon  said  that  he  never  dared  enter 
upon  a  continuous  course  of  teaching,  that 
brethren  of  extraordinary  research  and  pro- 
found learning  might  do  it,  but  he  could  not, 
for  he  was  obliged  to  owe  a  great  deal  of  his 
strength  to  variety  rather  than  profundity. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  to  go  through  a  long 
epistle  must  require  a  great  deal  of  genius  in 
the  preacher,  and  demand  a  world  of  patience 
on  the  part  of  the  hearers.  He  never  could 
preach,  he  said,  till  he  met  with  a  text  that 
gripped  him  by  the  hand ;  that  when  a  text 
gets  a  hold  of  us,  we  may  be  sure  that  we  have 


42         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

a  hold  of  it  and  may  safely  deliver  our  souls 
upon  it.  For  his  part,  he  must  take  the  text 
that  God  sent  him  and  he  knows  which  it  is  by 
these  signs,  that  it  grew  before  his  eye  like 
the  fabled  seed  which  developed  into  a  tree 
while  the  observer  watched  it ;  that  it  charmed 
and  fascinated  him  or  weighed  him  to  his 
knees,  loading  him  with  the  burden  of  the 
Lord.  He  must  wait  for  that  elect  word, 
he  said,  even  if  he  had  to  wait  till  within  an 
hour  of  the  service. 

Well,  that  is  one  side  of  the  question,  no 
doubt,  but  there  is  another  side.  I  am  con- 
vinced, for  my  own  part,  that  the  great  want  of 
many  Christian  people  in  our  time  is  a  more 
thorough  and  systematic  knowledge  of  the 
Word  of  God.  They  need  it  for  spiritual 
enlifyhtenment  and  also  for  Christian  stead- 
fastness.  I  have  spoken  with  people  who 
have  listened  to  sermons  all  their  lives  and 
nothing  surprises  me  more  than  to  hear  them 
relate  their  spiritual  perplexities.  They  are 
often  such  as  never  would  have  arisen  had 
they  read  their  Bibles  more  intelligently.  A 
man  who  has  grasped  the  central  idea  of  a 
book,  mastered  its  main  principles,  must  of 
necessity  see  its  details  in  a  much  clearer 
light  than  the  man  who  has  not.     I  am  not 


THE  PREACHERS   OF   THE  REFORMATION    43 

contending  for  an  elaborate  and  exhaustive 
treatment  of  every  line  of  every  verse  like 
that  which  John  Owen  has  given  in  his  Ex- 
position of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Life 
is  not  long  enough,  and  things  move  too  fast 
nowadays  for  that.  But  even  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  as  Dr.  Dale  has  shown  us,  may 
become  instinct  with  life,  when  a  living  man 
takes  it  in  hand  and  holds  it  up  to  the  light. 
His  exposition  of  that  Epistle,  as  his  biogra- 
pher tells  us,  was  the  work  of  a  busy  man, 
and  for  that  very  reason  comes  close  to  prac- 
tical life  and  its  daily  needs.  The  truths 
taught  in  the  Epistle  are  translated  into  the 
speech  of  our  own  day ;  there  is  nothing  about 
it  merely  academic  and  no  remoteness  in  the 
teaching.  I  venture  to  think  that  people  of 
average  intelligence  who  paid  anything  like 
fair  attention  to  that  exposition  would  feel  at 
the  end  that  not  only  had  light  been  shed  on 
the  Epistle  itself,  but  also  on  the  whole  of 
their  Bible  such  as  they  had  never  had  before. 
Every  man  must  be  a  judge  for  himself  and 
take  the  gauge  of  his  own  powers,  but  if  now 
and  again  in  the  course  of  a  ministry  —  to 
say  no  more  —  the  preacher  would  give  some 
amount  of  systematic  instruction  as  to  the 
mind  of  the  Spirit,  he  would  go  far  to  estab- 


44         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

lish  his  people  in  the  truth,  strengthen  their 
shaken  faith  and  revive  their  spiritual  passion. 
And  so  far  as  he  himself  is  concerned  he 
would  come  to  know  as  never  before  some 
of  the  deepest  joys  of  the  Christian  student's 
life.  Mr.  Spurgeon  has  told  us  how  a  single 
text  may  grip,  may  charm  and  fascinate  you. 
But  a  whole  book  of  Scripture  may  grip  you 
closer  and  charm  and  fascinate  you  even 
2nore.  By  way  of  illustration  let  me  again 
refer  to  Dr.  Dale.  In  1882  he  published  a 
series  of  Expositions  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians  which  he  had  first  given  to  his 
own  people.  Twelve  years  later,  only  a  few 
months  before  his  death,  writing  to  a  corre- 
spondent he  says :  "  If  I  can  lay  my  hands  on 
a  copy  of  my  lectures  on  the  Ephesians  this 
afternoon  I  shall  take  the  liberty  of  sending 
it  to  you.  It  is  the  book  of  mine  that  I  like 
best :  Paul  found  me  the  material,  and  I  had 
nothing  to  do  but  to  say  over  again  what  he 
had  already  said."  Yes,  but  in  another  letter 
he  shows  us  that  he  not  only  said  over  again 
what  Paul  had  said  but  that  he  also  saw 
over  again  the  streaming  glory  which  Paul 
had  seen.  Referring  to  the  same  epistle  and 
writing  to  another  expositor,  he  says :  "  I 
hope  that  you  had  as  much  delight  in  work- 


THE  PREACHERS   OF  THE  REFORMATION     45 

ing  at  the  Epistle  as  I  had.  Some  parts  of  it 
intoxicated  me  ;  whether  I  was  in  the  body 
or  out  of  the  body  I  could  hardly  tell."  So, 
there  are  joys  not  of  this  world  to  the  preacher 
himself  as  well  as  to  his  people  when  he  digs 
deep  into  the  rich  mine  of  sacred  truth. 

Passing  from  John  Colet  and  his  exposi- 
toiy  methods  let  us  now  place  ourselves  in 
thought  in  that  Reformation  time  which  he 
lived  not  to  see  but  for  which  he  did  much  to 
prepare.  After  the  Reformation  had  become 
an  accomplished  fact,  and  men  had  time  to 
realize  the  true  state  of  affairs,  it  was  found 
that  the  most  urgent  need  of  the  nation  was 
that  of  preachers  for  the  people.  For  under 
the  Papacy  preaching  had  been  made  to  give 
place  so  almost  entirely  to  mere  ceremonial 
and  ritual  in  worship  that  there  were  very  few 
who  could  preach.  In  1535  the  Archbishop 
of  York  said  that  in  all  his  province,  which  at 
that  time  included  the  northern  part  of  Lan- 
cashire, he  did  not  know  of  twelve  ministers 
who  were  able  to  preach.  In  many  parishes 
there  had  been  little  of  any  religious  teacliing 
of  Scriptural  sort  for  generations.  The  Presi- 
dent of  the  Council  of  the  North  informed 
the  Privy  Council  that  there  were  churches 
and  churches  where  there  had  literally  never 


46         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

been  a  sermon  for  years.  The  prophet  had 
given  place  to  the  priest,  and  always  when 
that  is  the  case,  the  people's  ignorance  be- 
comes the  nation's  danger.  It  was  felt  that 
something  must  be  done,  and  done  at  once, 
and  the  remedy  which  seemed  to  lie  nearest 
to  hand  was  to  order  the  preachers  in  the 
Cathedral  churches  to  divide  themselves  in 
the  dioceses  where  they  dwelt,  and  travel 
from  place  to  place  preaching  the  Word  to 
the  people.  Parts  of  the  province  of  Can- 
terbury were  quite  as  benighted  as  some  of 
those  in  the  province  of  York.  There,  too, 
there  were  parishes  in  the  churches  of  which 
a  sermon  had  not  been  heard  for  years.  There 
were  some  who  thought  it  to  be  a  great  step 
in  advance  when  it  was  laid  down  by  au- 
thority of  the  State  that  a  sermon  must  be 
preached  in  each  church  once  every  quarter. 
While  on  the  other  hand  there  were  others 
who  replied  with  disappointment  that  four 
sermons  in  a  year,  and  only  four,  were  as  little 
likely  to  make  perfect  men  in  Christ  Jesus  as 
four  strokes  of  an  axe  were  to  fell  a  mighty 
oak,  or  as  four  showers  of  an  hour  long  were 
to  moisten  the  hard  dry  earth  and  make  it 
fruitful  the  whole  year  long. 

In  Lancashire  men  were  appointed  who  were 


THE  PRE  AGUE  RS   OF   THE  REFORMATION     47 

called  King's  Preachers,  whose  duty  it  was 
to  itinerate,  preaching  the  doctrines  of  the 
Reformation  in  the  more  benighted  parts  of 
the  country.  Foremost  among  these  was 
John  Bradford,  who  was  afterwards  one  of 
the  martyrs  of  Queen  Mary's  time,  a  man  of 
bold  and  daring  energy  who  had  great  power 
of  command  over  an  audience.  Filled  with  the 
spirit  of  God  and  with  a  passionate  love  for 
Christ  and  the  souls  of  men,  wherever  he  was 
announced  to  preach  the  people  crowded  round 
him,  their  beating  hearts  responding  to  his 
burning  words.  A  contemporary  of  his  who 
often  heard  him  preach  sets  him  before  us  in  a 
way  which  may  make  him  serve  as  a  model  in 
some  not  unimportant  respects.  "  He  was," 
he  says,  "  in  those  times  a  master  of  speech ; 
but  he  had  learned  from  his  Master  not  to 
speak  what  he  could  speak,  but  what  his 
hearers  could  hear.  He  knew  that  clearness 
of  speech  was  the  excellency  of  speech  ;  and 
therefore  resolved  with  a  good  orator  to  speak 
beneath  himself  rather  than  above  his  audi- 
tory. Otherwise  his  eloquence  was  confessedly 
great,  that  is,  native,  masculine,  modest,  in 
one  word,  heavenly.  For  if  you  mark  him 
he  savors  and  breathes  nothing  but  heaven ; 
yea,  he  sparkles,  thunders,  lightens,  pierces 


48         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

the  soft,  breaks  only  the  stony  heart.  Whether 
he  were  better  preacher  or  scholar,  is  to  me  a 
great  question.  He  was  of  a  most  sweet, 
humble  and  melting  spirit,  who  ( I  know  not 
how)  will  be  in  a  man's  bosom  ere  he  be 
aware,  and  willingly  win  him  from  himself  to 
Christ." 

There  is  one  other  man  of  that  time,  Brad- 
ford's colleague  in  service  and  afterwards  his 
fellow-sufferer  in  the  fires  of  martyrdom,  Hugh 
Latimer,  who  also  stands  before  our  minds 
as  a  sturdy  English  preacher,  and  one  of  the 
heroes  of  the  Reformation  time.  Not  many 
years  ago  an  elm  tree  shed  its  autumn  leaves 
over  the  spot  in  St.  Paul's  churchyard  where 
once  stood  in  London  city  a  cross  which  sur- 
mounted the  most  celebrated  pulpit  in  Eng- 
land. The  tree  has  disappeared,  like  the 
structure  it  was  planted  to  commemorate, 
but  in  Hugh  Latimer's  sermons  we  can  still 
recall  some  of  the  glowing  sentences  which 
in  the  bygone  time  made  the  old  cathedral 
walls  to  echo.  Other  preachers  have  excelled 
him  in  passion,  stirring  rhetoric,  refinement, 
and  accuracy ;  but  few  have  proved  his  equals 
in  broad  forceful  influence  over  all  classes  of 
people,  and  his  sermons  remain  as  the  prose 
classics  of  his  day.     There  was  a  racy  fresh- 


THE  PREACHERS   OF  THE  REFORMATION     49 

ness,  often  a  strong  sense  of  humor,  and 
always  a  sturdy  vigor  about  his  utterances 
which  in  days  when  the  newspaper  had  not 
yet  appeared  and  the  public  meeting  was  not 
yet  organized,  dealt  trenchantly  with  the  vices, 
the  follies,  and  the  superstitions  of  the  time. . 
While  faithfully  proclaiming  Bible  fact  and 
truth  he  was  vigilant  and  urgent  against  all 
sorts  of  abuses  both  in  Church  and  State,  in 
private  and  in  social  life.  With  his  homely 
invective  he  spares  no  class,  passes  by  no  form 
of  oppression.  His  sermons  were  often  defi- 
cient in  method,  but  as  you  might  see  by  the 
faces  of  the  people  they  always  hit  the  mark 
and  made  the  target  ring.  No  one  reads  them 
now  for  theological  instruction,  but  they  are 
still  fresh  and  living,  which  is  more  than  can 
be  said  for  a  good  deal  of  that  kind  of  litera- 
ture. The  lordly  bishops  of  the  time  who 
sat  in  lofty  dignity  on  their  cathedral  thrones, 
or  indulged  the  love  of  ease  in  stately  palaces, 
leaving  other  people  to  do  the  preaching, 
must  have  winced  under  a  passage  which  is 
familiar  enough,  but  which  will  bear  repeat- 
ing. "  Who  is  the  most  diligentest  bishop 
and  prelate  in  all  England,  that  passeth  all 
the  rest  in  doing  his  office  ?  I  can  tell,  for 
I  know  him  who  it  is  —  I  know  him  well. 

4 


50         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

But  now  I  think  I  see  you  listening  and 
hearkening  that  I  should  name  him.  There 
is  one  that  passeth  all  others  and  is  the  most 
diligent  jorelate  and  preacher  in  all  England. 
And  will  you  know  who  it  is?  I  will  tell 
you  —  it  is  the  devil.  He  is  the  most  dili- 
gent preacher  of  all  others.  He  is  never  out 
of  his  diocese,  he  is  never  from  his  cure ;  ye 
shall  never  find  him  unoccupied ;  he  is  ever 
in  his  parish;  he  keepeth  residence  at  all 
times ;  ye  shall  never  find  him  out  of  the 
way ;  call  for  him  when  you  will,  he  is 
ever  at  home  ;  he  is  ever  at  his  plough ;  no 
lording  nor  loitering  can  hinder  him  —  you 
will  never  find  him  idle,  I  warrant  you.  And 
his  office  is  to  hinder  religion,  to  maintain 
superstition,  to  set  up  idolatry.  When  the 
devil  is  resident  and  hath  his  plough  going, 
then  away  with  books  and  up  with  candles ; 
away  with  Bibles  and  up  with  beads ;  away 
with  the  light  of  the  Gospel  and  up  with  the 
light  of  candles,  yea,  at  noonday.  .  .  .  Down 
with  Christ's  cross  and  up  with  purgatory 
pickpurse  —  the  Popish  purgatory,  I  mean  .... 
Up  with  man's  traditions  and  his  laws,  down 
with  God's  traditions  and  His  most  holy 
Word;  down  with  the  old  honor  due  to 
God,  and   up  with  the  new   god's  honors." 


THE  PREACHERS  OF   THE  REFORMATION     51 

That  was  living  talk  straight  from  the  soul  of 
a  living  man,  and  if  you  could  always  get 
these  two  things  together,  no  one  would  ever 
dream  of  saying  that  the  time  will  come  when 
the  pul23it  will  be  superseded  by  the  jDress. 
For  the  great  work  of  the  Church  of  God  in 
the  world  a  living  man  must  always  be  more 
than  a  printed  sheet. 

Hugh  Latimer  was  what  other  prophets  of 
God  have  been  —  both  martyr  and  prophet, 
and  with  his  martyrdom  came  the  downfall  of 
Protestantism  for  a  while.  During  the  five 
years  Queen  Mary  sat  on  the  English  throne 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said  about  the  preacher 
or  his  vocation,  for  he  was  supplanted  by  the 
priest  and  hunted  from  one  hiding  place  to 
another.  The  priests  of  the  Romish  Baal 
were  in  the  high  places  of  the  land,  and  the 
prophets  of  the  Lord  were  either  burning  at 
the  stake  or  wearing  out  their  lives  in  exile. 
The  history  of  those  five  j^ears  is  stained  with 
the  blood  of  brave  and  saintly  men  and 
women ;  but  all  noble  self-sacrifice  for  triith 
and  right  leaves  a  blessing  behind.  Those 
years  have  made  it  impossible  that  ever  such 
years  should  come  again.  They  have  left 
memories  behind  them  which  Rome  with  all 
her  craft  and  cunnino-  will  never  be  able  to 


52         PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

wipe  away ;  and  they  explain  why  it  was  that 
when  they  came  to  an  end  at  last  the  wheel 
swung  full  cycle  round  and  Protestantism 
was  once  more  the  religion  of  the  realm. 

Out  of  a  restored  Protestantism  came  that 
Puritanism  wliich  is  Protestantism  in  its  more 
fully  developed  form.  And  now  that  we  have 
reached  this  point,  it  may  be  well  before  pro- 
ceeding to  speak  of  the  preachers  of  Puritan 
times,  to  define  what  we  mean  by  Puritanism 
and  to  try  to  reduce  to  something  like  mental 
order  the  religious  and  ecclesiastical  phenom- 
ena of  the  Elizabethan  Church.  Speaking 
generally  it  may  be  safely  said  that  in  the 
beginning  of  Elizabeth's  reign  that  Church, 
so  far  as  its  leaders  were  concerned,  was  not 
only  Protestant  but  Puritan  and  Calvinistic. 
The  Roman  Catholic  bishops  —  all  but  one 
who  faced  about  —  had  disappeared  ;  and  the 
Anglican  divines  who  took  their  places  were 
all  of  them  stanch  Protestants.  During  the 
troubles  of  the  Marian  time  the  latter  were 
living  as  exiles  for  their  faith  in  Frankfort, 
Strasburg,  Geneva,  Zurich  and  elsewhere, 
where  they  were  hospitably  received  by  the 
Foreign  Protestants,  between  whom  and 
themselves  warm  friendships  still  continued 
to  subsist  even  after  the  return  of  the  exiles, 


TEE  PREACHERS   OF  THE  REFORMATION     53 

as  the  Zurich  Letters  remain  to  testify.  If 
these  men  could  have  had  their  way  they 
would  have  set  up  forms  of  worship  not  far 
removed  from  those  of  continental  Protes- 
tantism. Bishop  Jewell  may  be  taken  as  a 
thoroughly  representative  man  of  the  earlier 
time,  and,  writing  to  his  friend  Bullinger  at 
Zurich  in  1566,  speaking  of  the  vestments  and 
the  ceremonies  he  plainly  says  :  "  I  wish  that 
all,  even  the  slightest  vestiges  of  popery, 
might  be  removed  from  our  churches,  and 
above  all  from  our  minds.  But  the  Queen  is 
unable  to  endure  the  least  alteration  in  matters 
of  religion."  In  a  still  earlier  letter  to  Peter 
Martyr  he  had  spoken  even  more  contemptu- 
ously of  the  attempt  some  were  making  to 
set  up  ceremonial  display  in  the  worship  of 
God.  He  says :  "  The  scenic  apparatus  of 
Divine  worship  is  now  under  agitation  ;  and 
those  very  things  which  you  and  I  have  so 
often  laughed  at  are  now  seriously  and  sol- 
emnly entertained  by  certain  persons,  as  if 
the  Christian  religion  could  not  exist  without 
something  tawdry."  Clearly  this  Anglican 
bishop  was  a  Puritan  of  the  Puritans,  so  far 
as  the  externals  of  worship  were  concerned. 
Even  in  Convocation,  in  1563,  when 'a  resolu- 
tion  was  brought  forward  to  put  away   the 


54         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

vestments  and  ceremonies  to  which  tlie  Puri- 
tans objected,  there  was  actually  among  those 
present  a  majority  in  its  favor,  and  it  was 
only  when  proxies  were  called  for  that  it  was 
lost  by  one  vote.  It  was  the  steadfast  resis- 
tance of  the  Queen  alone,  who  liked  pomp  and 
ceremony  in  church  as  she  did  elsewhere, 
that  prevented  Protestantism  taking  a  more 
puritanical  form  than  it  did  in  the  earlier  years 
of  its  history.  Even  to  the  end  of  her  reign, 
so  far  as  doctrine  was  concerned,  the  Anglican 
Church  remained  strongly  Calvinistic.  As 
late  as  1595,  one  William  Barret  —  "a  bold, 
corrupt  and  unlearned  young  fellow,"  as  the 
Heads  of  Colleges  at  Cambridge  described  him 
—  in  a  sermon  before  the  University  expressed 
himself  unfavorably  against  Calvin's  doctrine 
of  predestination.  The  authorities  of  the 
University  were  unanimous  in  their  condem- 
nation of  the  preacher.  And  though  Arch- 
bishop Whitgift  is  justly  regarded  as  the 
bitter  enemy  of  the  Puritans,  he  showed  him- 
self as  resolute  a  Calvinist  in  doctrine  as  any 
Puritan  in  the  land.  He  at  once  sent  down 
to  Cambridge  nine  propositions,  commonly 
called  the  Lambeth  Articles,  the  first  of  which 
declared  that  "God  from  eternity  has  pre- 
destinated  some  persons  to  life,  and  repro- 


THE  PREACHERS   OF   THE  REFORMATION     55 

bated  others  to  death ;  "  the  third  affirmed 
that  "  the  number  of  the  predestinated  is  fixed 
and  cannot  be  lessened  or  increased  ; "  and 
the  ninth  and  last  proposition  stands  abso- 
lutely alone  in  its  appalling  simplicity,  for  it 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  :  "  It  is  not  in  the  will 
and  power  of  every  man  to  be  saved."  Clearly, 
so  far  as  predestination  is  concerned  no  Puri- 
tan could  go  beyond  the  doctrinal  position  "of 
this  archbishop  who  persecuted  the  Puritans. 
Yet  while  the  doctrines  of  Calvin  were  ac- 
cepted by  the  Anglican  Church  right  on  to 
the  end  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  they  were 
never  really  at  home  in  the  Anglican  system. 
They  were  a  foreign  element  brought  in  with 
the  first  great  impulse  of  Protestantism  and 
have  never  been  assimilated.  To  this  day 
Evangelical  Churchmen  have  never  been 
able  to  make  the  Articles  of  the  Prayer  Book 
harmonize  with  the  Rubrics  of  the  Prayer 
Book.  Sooner  or  later  it  was  inevitable  that 
Puritan  and  Anglican  should  part  company, 
for  they  were  not  agreed  in  their  conception 
of  the  standard  of  final  authority  in  religion. 
The  Puritans  fell  back  upon  Scripture  and 
Scripture  alone.  The  Anglican,  while  accept- 
ing Scripture  as  the  original  depository  of 
Christian  truth,   acknowledged  ecclesiastical 


56         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

tradition  as  its  legitimate  expositor.  He  ap- 
pealed less  to  personal  experience  than  to  the 
general  judgment  of  antiquity.  Accepting 
Scripture  and  tradition  as  joint  witnesses 
and  authorities  in  matters  of  faith,  the  idea 
of  the  Church  came  to  be  that  of  an  external 
institution  with  an  elaborate  system  of  means 
for  connecting  heaven  and  earth.  The  Thirty- 
Nine  Articles  were  still  retained  in  the 
Prayer  Book,  but  in  the  early  daj^s  of  James 
I.  they  were  more  and  more  left  out  of  the 
sermon  until  it  was  true,  as  Lord  Chatham 
said,  that  the  Church  had  a  Calvinistic  creed, 
an  Arminian  clergy,  and  a  Popish  liturgy. 

The  Puritan  discarded  tradition  and  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  a  priestly  hierarchy. 
He  boldly  claimed  to  be  able  to  draw  nigh  to 
God  through  Christ  for  himself ;  maintained 
that  separate  communities  of  believing  men 
were  true  churches  of  Christ  resting  on  a 
divine  foundation.  The  Puritan  minister 
held  that  his  authority  came  direct  from  the 
Lord  and  was  valid  as  recognized  by  believ- 
ing men  in  whom  dwelt  the  Spirit  of  God ; 
and  believing  that  faith  cometh  by  hearing 
not  by  church  ceremonies,  and  that  salvation 
means  personal  submission  of  heart  and  life 
to  Christ,  he  felt  himself  under  solemn  obli- 


THE  PREACHERS   OF   THE  REFORMATION     51 

gation  to  labor  unceasingly  to  bring  men  to 
God.  The  Puritan  layman  on  his  part  also 
felt  that  he  must  bring  his  own  understand- 
ing into  patient  and  thoughtful  exercise  in 
the  study  of  Scripture  and  not  let  the  Church 
do  his  thinking  for  him.  As  a  natural  con- 
sequence the  search  after  truth  carried  on 
thus  under  a  high  sense  of  personal  responsi- 
bility to  God  issued  in  the  formation  of 
habits  of  mental  independence,  profound 
seriousness,  and  manly  self-reliance.  What- 
ever may  be  said  as  to  the  fcsthetic  or  non- 
aesthetic  side  of  Puritanism  —  and  much 
more  has  been  said  than  is  borne  out  by  the 
facts  of  history  —  Puritan  principles  gave  to 
Puritan  men  an  indomitable  love  of  freedom, 
high  courage,  stern  integrity,  and  unbend- 
ing faithfulness  to  the  deepest  convictions  of 
the  soul.  ■  The  men  who  at  the  beg^inningf  of 
Elizabeth's  reign  seemed  to  be  substantially 
one,  at  the  end  of  half  a  century,  by  the  sheer 
force  of  the  idea  of  the  Church  they  had  sev- 
erall}'  accepted,  found  themselves  wide  asun- 
der. They  were  asunder  politically  as  well 
as  ecclesiastically.  For  under  the  Stuarts  the 
Anglo-Catholic,  believing  in  authority,  took 
sides  with  absolutism  in  political  government, 
and  in  his  blindness  proclaimed  the  divine 


58         PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

right  of  kings  to  govern  wrong.  On  the 
other  hand  the  Puritan,  as  we  might  expect, 
east  in  his  lot  with  the  political  party  con- 
tending for  freedom  and  constitutional  gov- 
ernment. He  became  the  effective  force  of 
that  party ;  and  when  the  two  systems  came 
at  last,  as  they  did,  to  open  conflict  in  the 
Great  Civil  War  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
victory  was  finally  declared  on  the  side  of 
Freedom  by  the  great  battles  of  Naseby  and 
Marston  Moor.  It  will  be  seen  from  this 
rapid  summary  that  a  process  of  change  was 
going  forward  ;  that  therefore  what  was  true 
of  church  parties  at  one  period  was  only  par- 
tially true  ten  or  twenty  years  later ;  and 
that  it  would  be  correct  to  describe  as  Puri- 
tan preachers  men  who  were  still  strongly 
attached  to  the  Anglican  Church. 

At  the  latter  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign  it 
was  urgently  felt  that  there  was  need  of  more 
and  more  regular  religious  instruction  among 
the  people ;  and  in  Convocation  "  order  was 
taken"  in  the  matter  of  preaching.  Every 
licensed  pi'eacher  was  to  give  twelve  sermons 
every  year  in  the  diocese  where  his  benefice 
lay;  and  six  or  seven  preachers  Avere  ap- 
pointed to  minister  "  by  course  "  in  parishes 
where  no  licensed  preacher  was.     What  took 


TEE  PREACHERS   OF  THE  REFORMATION     59 

place  in  Manchester  may  perhaps  be  taken  as 
typical  of  what  was  done  elsewhere.  There 
the  bishop  of  the  diocese  set  up  a  public  exer- 
cise to  be  held  on  the  second  Thursday  in  every 
month ;  and  nominated  certain  grave,  godly, 
and  learned  ministers  to  preach  in  rotation. 
And  as  the  clergy  needed  teaching  almost  as 
much  as  the  people,  all  parsons,  vicars,  curates, 
readers,  and  schoolmasters  within  the  deanery 
were  commanded  to  be  present.  Further  they 
were  to  be  ready  in  the  afternoon  to  be  more 
privately  conferred  with,  examined,  instructed, 
and  directed,  under  pain  of  censure. 

Subsequently  the  lords  of  the  Council  or- 
dered the  farther  enlargement  of  these  exer- 
cises and  their  extension  to  other  parts  of  the 
diocese.  In  accordance  with  this  direction 
similar  exercises  were  established  in  several 
large  towns  of  the  county,  usually  once  a 
month  on  the  market  day.  It  is  evident  from 
some  of  the  facts  which  have  come  down  to 
us  that  these  preachings  or  "  prophesyings " 
met  a  want  among  the  more  earnest-minded 
of  the  people.  On  the  Thui'sday  of  the 
monthly  exercise  in  Manchester  many  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  neighboring  towns,  long 
before  the  commencement  of  the  service, 
crowded  the  Collegiate  Church,  which  must 


60         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

have  presented  a  somewhat  animated  appear- 
ance. The  five  moderators  —  the  five  nom- 
inated grave,  godly,  and  learned  ministers, 
were  there  in  grave  and  sober  apparel,  for  in 
spite  of  all  orders  to  the  contrary  the  surplice 
was  scarcely  ever  worn  by  the  Puritan  clergy 
of  Lancashire.  The  bishop  also  was  fre- 
quently present  in  his  robes,  for,  Puritan  as 
he  was,  he  usually  distinguished  himself  from 
his  clergy  by  wearing  his  canonicals.  Now 
and  then  the  Earl  of  Derby  attended  in  some 
state  with  a  considerable  retinue,  and  the 
Puritan  magistrates  generally  occupied  a 
conspicuous  place  in  the  church.  As  to  the 
discourses  of  the  first  five  of  the  preachers, 
we  have  not  much  information,  but  a  con- 
temporary tells  us  of  one  William  Bourne, 
who  succeeded  the  last  of  the  five,  that  he 
"  seldom  varied  the  manner  of  his  preaching, 
which  after  explication  of  the  text,  was  doc- 
trine proof  of  it  from  Scripture,  by  reasoning 
and  answering  more  and  more  objections ;  and 
then  the  uses,  first,  of  information,  secondly, 
of  confutation  of  popery,  thirdly,  of  reprehen- 
sion, fourthly,  of  examination,  fifthly,  of  ex- 
hortation, and  lastly  of  consolation." 

To  show  you,  however,  that  all  the  preach- 
ers of  that  time  were  not  quite  so  stereotyped 


THE  PREACHERS   OF   THE  REFORMATION     61 

in  method,  let  me,  by  way  of  concluding  this 
lecture,  introduce  you  to  "  that  eloquent  di- 
vine of  famous  memory  Thomas  Playfere," 
who  was  Lady  Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity 
at  Cambridge  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time,  and 
afterwards  court  preacher  to  King  James. 
In  a  sermon  entitled  "  The  Pathway  to  Per- 
fection" based  on  Philippians  iii.  14,  he 
begins  by  saying  that  as  Solomon  went  up 
six  steps  to  come  to  his  great  throne  of  ivory, 
so  must  we  ascend  six  degrees  to  come  to 
this  high  top  of  perfection.  He  therefore  pro- 
ceeds to  divide  his  text  into  six  parts.  On 
that  part  which  deals  with  the  Apostle's  for- 
getting those  things  which  are  behind,  Pla}^- 
fere  says :  "  He  that  remembers  his  virtues 
hath  no  virtues  to  remember,  seeing  he  wants 
humility,  which  is  the  mother  virtue  of  all 
virtues.  For  this  is  the  difference  between 
the  godly  and  the  wicked:  both  remember 
virtues,  but  the  godly  remember  other  men's 
virtues,  the  wicked  remember  their  own. 
Wherefore  though  thou  have  conquered  king- 
doms 3'et  crake  not  of  it  as  Sennacherib  did  : 
though  thou  hast  built  Babel  yet  brag  not  of 
it  as  Nebuchadnezzar  did ;  though  thou  hast 
rich  treasures  yet  show  them  not  as  Hezekiah 
did  ;  though  thou  hast  slain  a  thousand  Phil- 


62         PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

istines  yet  glory  not  in  it  as  Samson  did ; 
though  thou  give  ahns  yet  blow  not  a  trum- 
pet ;  though  thou  fast  twice  a  week  yet  make 
no  words  of  it,  (remember  it  not  but)  Forget 
that  which  is  behind." 

On  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  mentioned 
in  the  text  he  pours  out  his  soul  in  rapture 
thus :  "  O  happy,  hapjDy  man  art  thou,  and 
thrice  happy  man  art  thou  !  For  when  we 
shall  see  God,  we  shall  see,  and  what  shall  we 
see  ?  That  which  no  mortal  eye  hath  seen 
that  we  shall  see.  We  shall  see  our  own  as 
sitting  and  shining  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
throne  of  ]\Iajesty.  We  shall  see  all  our  dear 
friends  which  we  have  not  seen  this  many  a 
day,  embracing  us  and  welcoming  us  into 
Christ's  kingdom.  We  shall  see  all  the  noble 
army  of  martyrs,  of  apostles,  of  prophets,  of 
patriarchs  day  and  night  singing  out  the 
praises  of  the  Lord.  We  shall  see  all  the 
invincible  host  of  angels,  of  archangels,  of 
principalities,  of  dominions  reverently  attend- 
ing upon  the  King  of  Glory.  We  shall  see 
the  King  ^limself  disparkling  and  displaying 
those  beams  of  beauty  which  are  the  Heavens' 
wonder  and  all  the  angels'  bliss." 

In  a  sermon  entitled  "  Heart's  Delight "  on 
the    text  "  Delight  thyself  in  the  Lord,"  he 


THE  PREACHERS   OF   THE  REFORMATION     63 

thus  exclaims :  "  Nay,  I  cannot  hold  my  heart 
for  my  joy ;  yea,  I  cannot  hold  my  joy  for  my 
heart;  to  think  that  He  which  is  my  Lord  is 
become  my  Father,  and  so  that  He  which  was 
offended  with  me  for  my  sin's  sake,  is  now 
reconciled  to  me  for  His  Son's  sake.  To 
think  that  the  High  Majesty  of  God  will  one 
day  raise  me  out  of  the  dust,  and  so  that  I 
who  am  now  a  poor  worm  upon  earth  shall 
hereafter  be  a  glorious  saint  in  heaven.  This, 
this  makes  me  delight  myself  in  the  Lord, 
saying,  O  Thou  that  art  the  delight  of  my 
delight,  the  life  of  my  life,  the  soul  of  my 
soul,  I  delight  myself  in  Thee,  I  live  only  for 
Thee,  I  offer  myself  unto  Thee,  wholly  to  Thee 
wholly,  one  to  Thee  one,  only  to  Thee  only. 
For  suppose  now,  as  St.  John  speaketh,  the 
whole  world  were  full  of  books,  and  all  the 
creatures  in  the  world  were  writers,  and  all 
the  grass  piles  upon  the  earth  were  pens,  and 
all  the  waters  in  the  sea  were  ink ;  yet  I  as- 
sure you  faithfully  all  these  books,  all  these 
writers,  all  these  pens,  all  this  ink  would  not 
be  sufficient  to  describe  the  very  least  part, 
either  of  the  goodness  of  the  Lord  in  himself, 
or  of  the  lovingkindness  of  the  Lord  towards 
thee." 


Ill 

THE   CAMBRIDGE   PURITANS 


LECTURE   III 
THE  CAMBEIDGE  PURITANS 

IN  this  lecture  I  will  ask  you  to  go  back 
with  me  to  the  earlier  years  of  the  Pur- 
itan movement,  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  that  I  may  introduce  to  you  some 
of  the  preachers  who  were  the  makers  of 
Puritanism.  The  men  who  were  the  leaders 
in  that  movement,  who  gave  it  its  distinctive 
character,  were  almost  all  of  them  University 
men,  and  for  the  most  part  Cambridge  men.  ■/ 
In  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century 
Cambridge  was  described  as  "  a  nest  of  Pur- 
itans." Emmanuel  is  usually  regarded  as 
the  one  distinctively  Puritan  College  of  that 
University  ;  but  it  should  be  noted  that, 
twenty  years  before  Emmanuel  was  founded, 
Christ's  College  led  the  way,  being-  strongly 
Protestant  almost  as  soon  as  Protestantism 
was  re-established  under  Elizabeth.  A  young 
man  named  Laurence  Chaderton,  coming  up  to  "^< 
Cambridge  from  one  of  the  old  Roman  Cath- 
olic families  of  Lancashire  and  entering  at 
Christ's  in   1564,  found   himself   at  once  in 


68         PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

the  midst  of  men  who  had  zealously  embraced 
the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation.  It  was  a 
new  world  to  liim  and  opened  up  new  ways 
of  thinking;  and,  as  one  who  knew  him  well 
tells  us,  he  went  through  severe  mental 
struggle ;  deliberately  examined  the  points 
in  dispute  between  the  adherents  of  the  new 
faith  and  the  old,  and  with  many  and  earnest 
prayers  decided  in  favor  of  the  Reformers. 
The  result  came,  as  he  says,  from  various 
sources  —  study  of  the  Bible,  the  conversation 
of  his  fellows,  and  that  mental  agitation  and 
movement  which  men  look  upon  as  a  "  call " 
from  God.  His  Roman  Catholic  father,  away 
up  in  Lancashire,  heard  with  consternation 
the  news  of  this  change  of  faith  on  the  part 
of  his  son,  and  wrote  at  once  to  say  that  if 
he  would  renounce  the  new  sect  he  had 
joined,  he  would  care  for  him  as  an  indul- 
gent father ;  "  otherwise,"  said  he,  "  I  enclose 
in  this  letter  a  shilling  to  buy  a  wallet  with. 
Go  and  beg  for  your  living.  Farewell ! " 
Undaunted  by  difficulty,  however,  Chaderton 
held  on  his  way,  gained  a  fellowship  and 
became  a  successful  tutor  at  Christ's. 

But  it  is  in  this  man  as  a  preacher  we  are 
specially  interested,  and  it  was  in  this  work 
he  exercised  his  most  memorable  influence. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  69 

Before  his  time  preaching  had  become  a  rarity 
in  the  University,  but  now,  for  nearly  fifty 
years,  as  afternoon  lecturer  at  St.  Clement's 
Church,  he  gathered  large  congregations  both 
from  the  town  and  the  university.  With 
natural  gifts,  acquired  attainments,  and  a 
wonderful  zeal  for  winning  men,  Chaderton 
obtained  great  influence  in  the  pulpit.  He 
seems  to  have  had  pre-eminent  qualifications 
for  the  work.  In  the  investigation  of  Scrip- 
ture he  displayed  great  acuteness  of  mind 
and  keen  spiritual  insight ;  and  he  had  the 
not  too  common  faculty  of  being  able  to  seize 
upon  and  forcibly  present  the  main  aspects 
of  a  subject.  As  a  speaker  his  style  was 
eminent  for  purity,  lucidity,  manliness,  and 
sincerity ;  and  it  was  specially  noted  that 
when  in  prayer,  he  became  affected  with 
such  ardor  himself  as  not  only  to  fire  the 
souls  of  his  hearers,  but  to  carry  and  raise 
them  "wdth  him  to  heaven.  Possessed  of  a 
voice  clear  and  pleasing  and  of  much  flexibil- 
ity ;  with  great  dignity  of  manner,  and  that 
propriety  of  action  which  Cicero  has  called 
"  the  eloquence  of  the  body,"  he  seems  to 
have  been  an  almost  ideal  preacher.  But 
while  many  things  contributed  to  his  success, 
the  main  power  of  the    man  was  spiritual; 


70        PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

and  it  was  a  fine  tribute  to  his  influence  that 
when  late  in  life  he  thought  of  resigning  his 
lectureship,  he  received  no  fewer  than  forty- 
letters  from  as  many  Christian  ministers  urg- 
ing him  to  continue,  if  he  could,  alleging 
that  they  themselves,  every  one  of  them, 
while  they  were  at  the  university  had  been 
brought  to  a  knowledge  of  the  truth  under 
his  ministry. 

Besides  the  forty  ministers  who  thus  wrote 
letters  of  'entreaty  to  Laurence  Chaderton, 
two  other  preachers,  in  whom  we  are  inter- 
ested, came  under  his  influence.  One  of 
these  was  his  own  brother-in-law,  Ezekiel 
v^^  Culverwell,  who,  on  leaving  the  university, 
wenr'to^e  minister  at  Groton  Manor  near 
Sudbury.  Here  he  had  a  memorable  hearer 
in  his  congregation,  a  young  man  of  eighteen, 
John  Winthrop  afterwards  better  known  to 
the  world  as  Governor  Winthrop.  The  com- 
ing of  Culverwell  proved  to  be  to  this  hearer 
of  his  an  important  event  in  his  spiritual 
history,  for  now,  as  he  tells  us,  the  Word 
came  home  to  him  with  power,  he  having 
found  only  light  before.  "  Now  came  I,"  says 
he,  "  to  some  peace  and  comfort  in  God  and 
in  His  ways ;  loved  a  Christian  and  the  very- 
ground  on  which  he  trod ;  honoured  a  faith- 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  71 

ful   minister   in  my   heart,   and   could   have 
kissed  his  feet." 

The  other  man  besides  Culverwell,  both 
intellectually  and  spiritually  influenced  by 
Chaderton  was .  William  Perkins,  a  Puritan 
preacher  of  more  than  ordinary  spiritual 
power.  John  Cotton  of  Boston  came  under 
his  influence  and  foug-ht  hard  against  it  at 
first,  from  a  fear  that  if  he  became  a  godly 
man  it  would  spoil  hinTfor  being  a  learned 
man.  But  God's  truth  as  ministered  by 
William  Perkins  proved  to  be  stronger  than 
John  Cotton's  wilfulness,  and  eventually  he 
left  the  university  both  godly  and  learned  to 
do  a  great  work  for  God  in  both  Bostons, 
that  of  the  Old  Country  and  that  of  the 
New.  Then  again,  John  Robinson,  of  Pil- 
grim Father  fame,  was  among  the  under- 
graduates who  listened  to  the  burning  words 
of  William  Perkins  in  the  University 
Church.  He,  too,  carried  this  influence 
with  him  through  life.  He  quotes  this 
man  aofain  and  agfain  in  his  works  and 
also  repi'inted  one  of  his  books  at  William 
Brewster's  press  for  the  benefit  of  his  own 
people  in  the  Leyden  chru'ch.  I  mention 
these  facts  in  passing  because  they  show 
us  who  are  preachers  that  we  do  not  always 


72        PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

know  in  our  own  life-time  what  we  are  doing 
when  faithfully  working  for  God.  The  man 
to  whom  you  pass  the  torch  of  heaven's  light 
hands  it  on  to  another  and  he  again  to  others 
after  him.  Laurence  Chaderton,  for  example, 
who  never  set  foot  on  your  shores,  is  yet 
living  in  the  religious  life  of  America  to-day. 
For,  as  we  have  seen,  he  imparted  his  own 
spirit  to  Ezekiel  Culverwell,  who  under  God 
begets  a  diviner  life  in  Governor  Winthrop. 
The  same  man  in  another  line  of  influence 
powerfully  sways  William  Perkins,  who,  in 
his  turn  again,  shapes  both  John  Cotton  of 
Boston  and  John  Robinson  the  honored  pastor 
of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers'  church.  And  thus 
in  a  very  real  sense  both  these  men  are  living 
among  you  still.  This  is  the  true  Apostolical 
Succession  —  the  only  succession  worth  caring 
for. 

In  the  case  of  a  man  at  once  so  learned 
as  a  scholar,  so  able  as  a  preacher,  and  so 
widely  influential  as  a  spiritual  force  as 
William  Perkins,  the  preacher  of  to-day 
may  well  be  interested  in  knowing  what 
were  his  methods  and  what  his  ideals. 
Phineas  Fletcher  the  poet,  author  of  "  The 
Purple  Island,"  speaks  of  him  thirty  years 
later  as  "  our  wonder  though  long  dead ;  " 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  73 

and  quaint  Thomas  Fuller  pays  him  the 
compliment  of  saying  that  "  his  sermons 
were  not  so  plain  but  that  the  piously 
learned  did  admire  them,  nor  so  learned 
but  that  the  plain  did  understand  them." 
Theology,  Perkins  described  as  "the  science 
of  living  blessedly  for  ever;"  and  he  dis- 
cussed its  main  doctrines  in  such  sort  as 
to  abandon  abstruse  and  unprofitable  topics, 
and  with  such  solemn  and  impassioned  dis- 
course as  to  win  the  ear  of  the  most  varied 
audience,  method  and  fervor  presenting 
themselves  in  rare  combination. 

As  to  his  ideals  —  what  the  Christian 
preacher  should  strive  to  be  and  to  aim  at, 
he  has  told  us  himself  in  certain  addresses 
which  he  delivered  publicly  in  the  university 
and  which  were  taken  down  and  preserved 
for  us  by  his  loving  disciple  William  Crashaw. 
I  shall  help  you,  I  think,  and  furnish  true 
inspiration,  if  I  briefly  summarize  for  you 
the  main  points  of  addresses  given  by  a 
master-workman  to  certain  university  divin- 
ity students  and  preachers  now  three  hundred 
years  ago.  The  subject  of  these  addresses 
was  "The  Calling  of  the  Ministry,  describ- 
ing the  Duties  and  Dignities  of  that  Call- 
ing."    Speaking   within   the   bounds   of  the 


74         PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

university,  Perkins  begins  by  saying:  Most 
of  us  in  this  place  are  either  prophets  or  the 
sons  of  prophets.  If  we  are  prophets  we  are 
God's  messengers  and  must  preach  God's 
Word  as  God's  Word  and  deliver  it  as  we  re- 
ceived it.  For  as  many  men  mar  a  good  tale 
in  the  telling,  so  we  must  see  to  it  lest  we  take 
away  the  power  and  majesty  of  God's  Word 
in  the  manner  of  delivering  it.  Every  true 
minister  is  a  double  interpreter  —  God's  in- 
terpreter to  the  people  by  preaching  to  them 
from  God,  and  the  people's  interpreter  to 
God,  laying  open  their  wants,  confessing 
their  sins,  craving  pardon  and  forgiveness 
for,  and  in  their  names  giving  thanks  for 
mercies  received,  thus  so  offering  up  their 
spiritual  sacrifices  to  God.  So  that  every 
one  who  either  is,  or  intends  to  be  a  minister 
needs  that  tongue  of  the  learned  of  which 
Isaiah  speaks,  by  which  he  may  be  able 
to  speak  a  word  in  season  to  him  that  is 
weary.  To  be  able  to  speak  with  this 
tonpfue  the  minister  must  first  be  furnished 
with  human  learning,  next  with  divine  knowl- 
edge, and  besides  these  with  that  inward 
learning  taught  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  The 
two  first  he  must  learn  from  men,  the  third 
from  God  :  a  true  minister  must  be  inwaixUy 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  75 

taught  by  the  spiritual  schoolmaster,  the  Holy- 
Ghost.  He  must  not  only  have  the  knowl- 
edge of  divine  things  flowing  in  his  brain, 
but  engraven  in  his  heart  and  printed  in  his 
soul  by  the  spiritual  finger  of  God.  After 
all  his  own  study,  meditation,  conference, 
commentaries,  after  all  human  helps  he  must 
pray  with  the  Psalmist,  '  Open  thou  mine 
eyes  that  I  may  see  the  wonders  of  thy 
Law.'  Then  too  he  must  labor  for  sanctity 
and  holiness  of  life.  A  minister  is  to  declare 
the  reconciliation  betwixt  God  and  man,  and 
is  he  himself  not  reconciled  ?  Dare  he  present 
another  man  to  God's  mercy  for  pardon  and 
never  yet  presented  himself?  Can  he  com- 
mend the  state  of  grace  to  another,  and  never 
felt  the  sweetness  thereof  in  his  own  soul? 
Dare  he  come  to  preach  sanctification  with 
polluted  lips  and  out  of  an  unsanctified 
heart?  Let  all  true  ministers  of  God  first 
be  God's  interpreters  to  their  own  con- 
sciences, and  their  own  souls'  interpreters 
to  God,  then  shall  they  know  more  perfectly 
how  to  discharge  the  ofiice  of  true  inter- 
preters betwixt  God  and  His  people.  And 
while  they  must  privately  confer,  visit 
admonish  and  rebuke,  yet  principally  they 
must  preachy  and  that  in  such  good  manner 


76         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

and  in  so  diligent  measure  as  they  may 
redeem  and  win  souls  —  the  end  they  must 
aim  at  must  be  to  win  souls.  Some  preach 
for  fear  of  the  law,  to  avoid  censure  or 
punishment ;  some  for  fashioris  sake,  that 
they  may  be  like  others ;  some  for  ostenta- 
tion''s  sake  to  win  credit  and  praise ;  some 
for  ambition,  to  rise  in  the  world:  All  these 
forget  their  commission,  which  is  to  deliver  a 
man  from  going  down  to  hell. 

In  dealing  further  with  the  duties  and 
dignities  of  the  ministry  Perkins  spoke  of 
the  making  of  a  prophet  as  set  forth  in  the 
vision  of  Isaiah.  At  the  sight  of  the  Eter- 
nal the  man  of  God  was  humbled  to  the 
dust  and  cried,  Woe  is  me  for  I  am  undone ! 
"  Yes,"  says  he,  "  this  is  God's  way.  All  true 
ministers,  especially  such  as  are  deputed  to 
the  greatest  works  in  His  Church  must  be 
first  of  all  stricken  with  a  great  fear  in  con- 
sideration of  the  greatness  of  their  function, 
yea,  into  an  amazement  and  astonishment, 
in  the  admiration  of  God's  glory  and  great- 
ness, whose  room  they  occupy  and  whose 
message  they  bring.  And  the  more  they 
are  afraid  and  shrink,  so  it  be  under  the 
contemplation  of  God's  majesty  and  their  own 
weakness   the   more   likely  it   is   that    they 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  77 

are  truly  called  of  God,  and  appointed  for 
worthy  purposes  in  His  Church."  Looking 
round  upon  his  audience  he  went  on  to  say : 
"  The  use  of  this,  as  it  is  for  all  ministers, 
so  especially  for  us  who  live  in  the  Univer- 
sity. We,  many  of  us,  are  hereafter  by  God's 
grace  to  be  framed  to  the  ministry,  as  some 
of  us  already  are.  Now  here  we  have  many 
occasions  to  be  put  up  in  self-conceit.  We 
see  ourselves  grow  in  time,  in  degrees,  in 
learning,  in  honor,  in  name  and  estimation, 
and  to  many  of  us  God  gives  good  portions 
of  His  gifts.  What  are  all  these  but  so 
many  baits  to  allure  us  to  pride  and  vain 
opinions  of  our  own  worth?  But  let  us 
remember  that  our  purpose  is  to  save  souls 
and  that  our  weapons  in  this  warfare  must 
not  be  carnal  as  pride,  vainglory  and  self- 
conceit.  If  therefore  we  ever  look  to  be 
made  instruments  of  God's  glory  in  saving 
souls  let  us  set  before  our  eyes  not  only  the 
honour  but  also  the  danger  of  our  calling 
and  humble  ourselves  under  the  mighty 
hand  of  God  that  He  may  exalt  us  in  due 
time.  Let  us  be  content  that  God  give  any 
occasion  or  means  to  pull  us  down  either 
by  outward  crosses  or  inward  temptations, 
and  let  us  rejoice  when  we  are  thereby  so 


78  PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

far  cast  down  that  we  cry  out  in  the  aston- 
ishment of  our  spirits,  as  the  prophet  did: 
'  Woe  is  me,  for  I  am  undone.'  Those  men 
do  pronounce  the  most  powerful  blessings 
on  other  men's  souls,  and  speak  the  best 
word  to  other  men's  consciences,  who  often- 
est  say  unto  themselves,  '  Woe  is  me,  for  I 
am  undone  I ' 

"The  prophet  specially  exclaimed  that  he 
felt  himself  to  be  a  man  of  unclean  lips  — 
why  unclean  of  lips  rather  than  of  heart  or 
hands?  Because  he  was  a  prophet  and  his 
tongue  was  to  be  used  as  a  principal  instru- 
ment of  God's  glory.  Every  man  is  to  be 
tested  what  he  is  by  his  calling  rather  than 
by  something  collateral ;  therefore  the  honor 
or  dishonor  of  a  minister,  is  the  use  or  abuse 
of  his  tongue,  and  his  comfort  or  discomfort 
is  the  well  using  or  not  using  of  it.  If  he 
use  not,  or  abuse  his  tongue,  the  unclean- 
ness  of  his  lips  will  be  the  heaviest  burden 
of  all.  They  therefore  are  greatly  deceived 
who  think  a  minister  to  discharge  sufficiently 
his  duty,  though  he  preach  not,  if  he  keep 
good  hospitality,  and  make  peace  amongst 
neighbours  and  perform  other  works  of  char- 
ity and  good  life.  For  if  a  minister  have  not 
this  virtue,  he  hath  none.     If  he  preach  not, 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  79 

if  he  abuse  his  lips,  or  if  he  open  them 
not,  he  hath  no  conscience,  nor  can  have 
any  comfort;  for  that  is  the  principal  duty 
of  a  minister,  though  all  the  other  be  re- 
quired to  make  him  complete. 

"Still  while  good  words  are  good,  good 
words  are  vain  where  there  is  no  good  life. 
Let  not  ministers  think  that  their  golden 
words  shall  do  so  much  good  as  their  leaden 
lives  shall  do  hurt.  It  is  a  vain  conceit  for 
men  to  imagine  there  is  any  force  in  elo- 
quence or  human  learning  to  overthrow  that 
sin  in  others  which  ruleth  and  reigneth  in 
themselves.  Let  the  churches  take  note  of 
this.  For  it  is  the  glory  of  a  church  to 
have  their  doctrine  powerful  and  effectual 
for  the  winning  of  souls ;  therefore  it  con- 
cerneth  them  to  take  order,  as  well  that  their 
ministers  be  godly  men  as  good  scholars : 
and  their  lives  be  inoffensive  as  well  as  their 
doctrine  sound ;  or  else  they  will  find  in 
woeful  experience  that  they  pull  down  as 
much  with  one  hand,  as  they  build  up  with 
the  other.  But  while  this  toucheth  the 
churches  it  more  nearly  concerns  ministers 
themselves,  who  must  know  their  case  is 
most  fearful  of  all  men's,  if  they  come  into 
God's   presence   in   their   profaneness.      For 


80         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

as  no  man  is  more  honorable  than  a  learned 
and  holy  minister,  so  none  is  more  con- 
temptible in  this  world,  none  more  miser- 
able for  that  to  come  than  he  who  by  his 
loose  and  lewd  life  doth  scandalize  his 
doctrine. 

"  While  sin,  even  the  least  sin,  nay  a  very 
sinfulness  of  man  makes  a  man  afraid  of  God's 
presence  the  way  to  true  courage  and  bold- 
ness before  God  is  to  repent  daily  of  sin  and 
labor  to  grow  in  true  holiness.  Wealth  nor 
wit,  learning  nor  authority  can  do  this  for 
thee,  but  only  a  good  conscience,  made  good 
by  grace  and  repentance.  Then  shalt  thou 
rejoice  in  God's  presence  in  this  world,  and 
delight  to  think  of  God,  to  speak  of  God,  to 
pray  unto  Him,  to  meet  Him  in  His  Word  and 
Sacraments,  and  at  the  last  day  shalt  thou 
stand  with  confidence  before  the  throne  of 
His  glory." 

On  the  matter  of  the  touching  of  the 
prophet's  lips  with  a  burning  coal  from  the 
altar,  he  says  "  This  signifies  that  the  apt  and 
sufficient  teacher  must  have  a  tongue  of  fire, 
full  of  power  and  force,  even  like  fire  to  eat 
up  the  sins  and  corruptions  of  the  world.  For 
though  it  be  a  worthy  gift  of  God  to  speak 
mildly  and   moderately,  so   that  his  speech 


THE   CA^f BRIDGE  PURITAXS  81 

shall  fall  like  dew  upon  the  grass,  yet  it  is 
the  tongue  of  fire  that  beats  down  sin  and 
works  sound  grace  in  the  heart.  It  may  be 
there  are  some  who  need  the  tongue  of 
fire.  But  it  must  be  fire  taken  from  the  altar 
of  God,  it  must  be  fire  from  heaven,  his  zeal 
must  be  a  godly  and  heavenly  zeal.  He  that 
hath  a  malicious  and  contentious  tongue  hath 
a  tongue  of  fire,  but  if  a  man  stand  up  to 
preach  with  this  tongue  God  will  never  suffer 
any  great  work  to  be  done  by  him  in  His 
Church,  though  liis  tongue  be  never  so  fiery 
and  his  speech  never  so  powerful." 

The  prophet  having  purged  lips  heard 
the  voice  of  the  Lord,  sajdng :  Whom  shall 
I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us  ?  "  We  who  are 
in  the  Universities,"  Perkins  says,  "  are  here 
admonished  to  look  to  ourselves.  By  God's 
blessing  we  are  many,  and  daily  grow  more 
and  more  ;  let  us  therefore  so  furnish  ourselves 
as  that  when  God  or  His  Church  shall  say 
Who  will  go  for  us?  He  may  find  many 
among  us  whom  He  may  send  to  that  great 
work  of  the  ministry. 

"  Then  if  He  send  them  they  are  His  ser- 
vants and  if  they  are  His  servants  they  are  not 
their  own  masters.  The}^  may  not  therefore 
please  themselves,  nor  serve  their  own  pleas- 

6 


82         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

ures,  nor  seek  their  own  credit  or  profit.  If 
they  be  God's  messengers  and  servants  it 
follows  too  that  they  must  not  be  the  servants 
of  men  to  please  or  to  flatter  or  satisfy  fancies 
of  theirs.  It  is  not  for  God's  servants  to  be 
slaves  to  the  persons,  or  pleasures  or  humors 
of  men.  In  all  their  undertakings  they  must 
forthwith  call  to  mind  the  question  Who 
sent  me  hither  and  for  whom  am  I  come? 
Even  from  and  for  God,  and  therefore  am  I 
to  peld  to  nothing  or  aim  at  anything  but 
what  may  be  both  to  the  will  and  for  the 
glory  of  Him  who  sent  me.  If  ministers  be 
God's  servants  then  let  them  regard  their 
Master's  glory,  and  be  ashamed  to  do  any- 
thing either  in  doctrine  or  life  wdiich  may 
dishonor  Him.  If,  too,  they  be  God's  am- 
bassadors, then  must  they  not  deliver  their 
own  fancies  or  inventions,  but  that  message 
they  received ;  and  as  they  received  it  so  must 
they  deliver  it.  If  they  do  this,  if  they  do 
their  duties  faithfully,  they  may  take  their 
j)ains  with  joy  for  they  have  a  master  who 
will  reward  them  ;  they  may  speak  freely,  so 
it  be  with  discretion,  for  they  have  a  master 
who  will  make  it  good  ;  they  may  stand  boldly 
in  the  face  of  their  enemies  for  they  have  a 
master  who  will  defend  them.     Every  faith- 


THE    CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  83 

ful  minister  may  say  to  himself,  I  will  do  my 
duty  and  deliver  my  embassage :  He  whom  I 
serve  and  whose  I  am,  He  who  sent  me  and 
for  whom  I  come,  will  bear  me  out." 

The  years  when  William  Pei'kins's  influence  v 
was  greatest  both  in  the  town  and  in  the 
imiversity  —  the  years  from  1590  till  his 
death  in  1602  —  were  the  golden  age  of  Eng- 
lish Literature.  It  has  been  truly  said  that 
there  are  no  such  ten  years  either  in  that  or 
any  other  literature  as  the  nineties  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  when  you  can  point  to  an 
equal  number  of  masterpieces  and  masters. 
For  taking  not  the  time  of  writing  but  of 
publication  as  the  criterion,  we  associate  these 
years  with  the  production  of  Spenser's  "  Faerie 
Queene,"  and  the  earlier  certain  plays  of 
Shakespeare  ;  the  historical  poems  of  Drayton 
and  Daniel ;  the  satires  of  Hall,  Lodge  and 
Marston ;  the  earliest  plays  of  Ben  Jonson, 
Chapman  and  Dekker ;  the  Essays  of  Bacon 
and  the  "  Ecclesiastical  Polity  "  of  Hooker. 
The  mere  enumeration  of  these  works  may 
well  fill  us  with  wonder.  It  was  an  outburst 
of  tropical  luxuriance  after  a  time  of  dearth. 

As  we  might  expect,  all  this  affluence  of 
mind  told  both  directly  and  indirectly  upon 
the  pulpit  of   the  time.     If   it  were  in  our 


?> 


84         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

power  now  to  travel  over  the  whole  ground 
other  names  might  be  cited  in  proof  that  it 
did,  but  there  are  two  preachers  to  whom  I 
may  refer  who  are  not  unworthy  to  stand  out 
even  in  the  searchincj  liofht  of  that  brilliant 
time.  One  of  these  was  Henry  Smith,  known 
as  the  silver-tongued  preacher,  and  therefore, 
as  Thomas  Fuller  says,  only  one  metal  below 
Chrysostom,  the  golden-mouthed,  himself. 
After  a  brief  time  at  Cambridge  we  find  him 
living  as  a  student  with  a  quaint  Puritan 
preacher  of  the  time,  Richard  Greenham, 
rector  of  Dry  Drayton  in  Cambridgeshire, 
who  seems  to  have  thoroughly  imbued  him 
with  Puritan  principles.  It  was  probably 
through  his  influence  that  Smith,  from  con- 
scientious scruples  on  the  matter  of  subscrip- 
tion, declined  to  undertake  a  pastoral  charge, 
and  contented  himself  with  one  of  those  Puri- 
tan lectureships,  common  then  and  later, 
which  combined  opportunities  for  preaching 
with  more  than  ordinary  freedom  for  the 
preacher.  Elected  in  1587  as  Lecturer  at  St. 
Clement  Danes,  London,  he  quickly  rose  to 
great  popularity,  and  came  to  be  spoken  of  as 
the  "  prime  preacher  of  the  nation."  Wood 
tells  us  that  he  came  to  be  "esteemed  the 
miracle  and  wonder  of  his  age,  for  his  prodi- 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  85 

gious  memory,  and  for  his  fluent,  eloquent 
and  practical  way  of  preaching."  He  was,  it 
may  be,  all  the  more  welcome  to  his  hearers 
from  the  fact  that  his  sermons  were  almost 
entirely  free  from  those  numerous  divisions 
and  subdivisions  of  his  subject,  and  from 
those  elaborate  statements  of  doctrine  in 
which  other  preachers  of  the  time  indulged. 
They  were  free  also  from  that  "  churchiness  " 
of  tone  in  which  later  Anglican  divines 
abounded ;  they  were  practical,  pmigent,  and 
interspersed  with  vivid  and  luminous  char- 
acter sketches. 

His  theory  of  simplicity  in  preaching  will 
commend  itself  to  you.  "  There  is,"  said  he, 
"  a  kind  of  preachers  risen  up  of  late  which 
shroud  and  cover  every  rustical  and  unsavory 
and  childish  and  absurd  sermon  under  the 
name  of  the  simple  kind  of  teaching.  But 
indeed  to  preach  simply  is  not  to  preach 
rudely,  nor  unlearnedly,  nor  confusedly,  but 
to  preach  plainly  and  perspicuously  that  the 
simplest  man  may  understand  what  is  taught, 
as  if  he  did  hear  his  name."  And  while  he 
has  thus  a  word  for  the  preacher  he  has  one 
for  the  hearers  too.  In  a  sermon  on  "  The 
Art  of  Hearing,"  he  says  there  are  divers 
ways  of  hearing :    "•  One  is  like  an  Athenian 


86         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

and  hearkeneth  after  news ;  if  the  preacher 
say  anything  of  our  armies  beyond  the  sea, 
or  Council  at  home,  or  matters  at  court. 
Another  cometh  to  gaze  about  the  church; 
he  hath  an  evil  eye  which  is  still  looking  upon 
that  from  which  Job  did  avert  his  eye.  An- 
other cometh  to  muse ;  so  soon  as  he  is  set 
he  falleth  into  a  brown  study ;  sometimes  his 
mind  runs  on  his  market,  sometimes  on  his 
journey,  sometimes  of  his  suit,  sometimes  of 
his  dinner,  sometimes  of  his  sport  after  dinner, 
and  the  sermon  is  done  before  the  man  thinks 
where  he  is.  Another  cometh  to  hear,  but  so 
soon  as  the  preacher  hath  said  his  prayer,  he 
falls  fast  asleep,  as  though  he  had  been 
brought  in  for  a  corpse,  and  the  preacher 
should  preach  at  his  funeral."  He  is  equally 
keen  and  sarcastic  on  those  who  admire  the 
cleverness  of  a  man  who  can  take  in  liis 
neighbors  and  make  money  at  their  expense : 
"  He  who  can  go  beyond  all  in  shifts  and 
policy  is  counted  the  wisest  man  in  court  and 
city.  Oh,  if  Machiavel  had  lived  in  our 
country  what  a  monarch  should  he  be !  To 
what  honor  and  wealth  and  power  and  credit 
might  he  have  risen  unto  in  short  time, 
whether  he  had  been  a  lawyer  or  a  courtier, 
or   a   prelate !      Methinks  I  see    how  many 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  87 

fingers  would  point  at  him  in  the  streets  and 
say,  There  goeth  a  deep  fellow ;  he  liatli  more 
wit  in  his  little  finger  than  the  rest  in  their 
whole  body." 

From  liis  character  sketches  here  is  one 
of  the  Flatterer:  "He  is  like  your  shadow 
wliich  doth  imitate  the  action  and  gesture  of 
your  bod}',  which  stands  when  you  stand,  and 
walks  when  you  walk,  and  sits  when  you  sit, 
and  riseth  when  you  rise  :  so  the  flatterer  doth 
praise  when  you  praise,  and  finds  fault  when 
you  find  fault,  and  smiles  when  you  smile, 
and  frowns  when  you  frown,  and  applauds 
you  in  your  doings,  and  soothes  you  in  your 
sayings,  and  in  all  things  seeks  to  please  your 
humor,  till  he  hath  sounded  the  depth  of 
your  devices,  that  he  may  betray  you  to  your 
greatest  enemies.  As  the  sirens  sing  most 
sweetly  when  they  intend  your  destruction,  so 
flatterers  S})eak  most  fair  when  they  practise 
most  treachery.  Therefore  every  fair  look  is 
not  to  be  liked,  every  smooth  tale  is  not  to 
be  believed,  and  every  glozing  tongue  is  not 
to  be  trusted.  We  must  try  the  words 
whether  they  come  from  the  heart  or  no  ;  and 
we  must  try  the  deeds  whether  they  be  answer- 
able to  the  words  or  no." 

On  the  more  solemn  aspects  of  life  this 


88         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

preacher  can  speak  solemn  and  searchin^^ 
words,  as  for  example,  when  he  speaks  of 
repentance  as  a  matter  of  urgent  need: 
"  Whether  thou  be  old  or  young,  thy  repent- 
ance cannot  come  too  soon,  because  thy  sin 
is  gone  before.  If  thou  lackest  a  spur  to 
make  thee  run,  see  how  every  day  runneth 
away  with  thy  life.  Youth  cometh  upon 
childhood,  age  cometh  upon  youth,  death 
cometh  upon  age,  with  such  a  swift  sail, 
that  if  all  our  minutes  were  spent  in  morti- 
fying ourselves,  yet  our  glass  would  be  run 
out  before  we  had  purged  half  our  corrup- 
tions." These  again  are  lurid  and  terrible 
words  with  which  he  describes  the  anguish 
of  remorse  :  "  There  is  a  warning  conscience 
and  a  gnawing  conscience.  The  warning  con- 
science cometh  before  sin,  tlie  gnawing  con- 
science followeth  after  sin.  The  warning 
conscience  is  often  lulled  asleep,  but  the 
gnawing  conscience  wakeneth  her  again.  If 
there  be  any  hell  in  this  world,  they  which 
feel  the  worm  of  conscience  gnaw  upon  their 
hearts  may  truly  say  that  they  have  felt  the 
torments  of  hell.  Who  can  express  that 
man's  horror  but  himself?  Nay,  what 
horrors  are  there  which  he  cannot  express 
himself  ?     Sorrows  are  met  in  his  soul  at  a 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  89 

feast ;  and  fear,  thought  and  anguish,  divide 
liis  soul  between  them.  All  the  furies  of 
hell  leap  upon  his  heart  like  a  stage. 
Thought  calleth  to  fear;  fear  whistleth  to 
horror ;  horror  beckoneth  to  despair,  and 
saith.  Come  and  help  me  to  torment  the 
sinner.  One  saith  that  she  cometh  from  this 
sin,  and  another  saith  that  she  cometh  from 
that  sin,  so  he  goeth  through  a  thousand 
deaths  and  cannot  die." 

Alongside  of  Henry  Smith,  and  to  be 
accounted  even  greater  than  he  as  a  Puritan 
preacher,  must  be  placed  that  Thomas  Adams  J^ 
who  has  been  called  the  Shakespeare  of  the 
Puritans.  Southey  seems  to  have  been  the 
one  to  start  the  comparison  when  he  pro- 
nounced him  to  be  the  "prose  Shakespeare 
of  Puritan  theologia.ns,  scarcely  inferior  to 
Fuller  in  wit  or  to  Taylor  in  fancy."  This 
judgment  of  Southey's  may  be  qualified  and 
at  the  same  time  extended  by  saying  that 
while  Adams  is  not  so  sustained  as  Jeremy 
Taylor  nor  so  continuously  sparkling  as 
Thomas  Fuller,  he  is  surpassingly  eloquent 
and  much  more  thought-laden  than  either. 
He  is  like  Shakespeare  in  one  thing  at  least ; 
while  we  have  his  works  we  know  extremely 
little  about  the   man   himself.     In   1612  he 


90         PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

was  a  "  preacher  of  God's  Word  at  Willing- 
ton,"  a  village  in  Bedfordshire,  four  miles 
from  Bedford  town.  And  it  may  be  noted 
by  the  way  that  a  walk  of  twenty  minutes 
from  his  vicarage  door  would  have  brought 
this  Puritan  Shakespeare  to  Cardington  vil- 
lage, where,  in  the  previous  century,  George 
Gascoigne,  our  earliest  English  satirist,  was 
born,  and  that  if  he  had  extended  his  walk 
some  fifteen  minutes  more  he  might  have 
looked  in  at  the  cottage  in  Elstow  parish 
where  sixteen  years  later  John  Bunyan,  our 
greatest  English  allegorist,  first  saw  the  light. 
Adams  was  afterwards  vicar  of  Wingrave  in 
Buckinghamshire  and  then  preacher  in  one 
or  two  London  churches,  and  when  we  have 
said  this  we  have  said  nearly  all  that  can  be 
said  to  purpose  about  the  man  himself.  It 
is  with  his  work  as  "a  preacher  of  God's 
Word,"  as  he  styles  himself,  rather  than  with 
his  own  personal  history  we  are  now  con- 
cerned. As  such  we  may  describe  him  as 
one  of  the  doctrinal  Puritans,  though  he 
differed  widely  from  many  of  the  Puritans 
on  the  ecclesiastical  and  political  questions  of 
the  time.  Many  of  his  sermons,  like  others 
of  the  period,  were  sermons  on  manners 
rather  than  on  doctrine  and  lead  us  to  think 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  91 

of  him  as  a  divine  moralist  rather  than  as 
a  theologian.  Yet  a  theologian  he  was,  his 
theology  being  Calvinistic  and  Evangelical. 
He  has  a  great  belief  that  God  will  make  that 
sure  which  we  cannot  make  sure.  He  was 
not  far  wrong  there,  though  we  may  not 
always  be  able  to  accept  his  way  of  stating 
tliis  conviction  of  his  as  when  he  says  that 
the  Church  is  a  number  of  men  whom  God 
hath  set  apart  by  an  eternal  decree.  Still,  he 
tempers  even  this  when  on  the  other  side  we 
find  him  saying :  "  It  was  not  one  for  one 
that  Christ  died,  not  one  for  many :  but  one 
for  all  .  .  .  and  this  one  must  needs  be  of 
infinite  price."  "  Some  affirm,"  says  he,  "  that 
I  have  made  the  gate  of  heaven  too  narrow, 
and  they  hope  to  find  it  wider ;  God  and  the 
Scriptures  are  more  merciful.  True  it  is  that 
heaven-gate  is  in  itself  wide  enough  and  the 
narrowness  is  in  respect  of  the  man  who 
enters ;  and  though  thy  sins  cannot  make 
that  too  little  to  receive  thee,  yet  they  make 
thee  too  gross  and  unfit  to  get  in." 

As  for  the  preacher  himself,  he  would  have 
him  consecrate  to  the  service  all  gifts  and  the 
ripest  scholarship :  "  Learning,"  says  he, 
"  as  well  as  office,  is  requisite  for  a  minister. 
An  unlearned  scribe,  without  his  treasure  of 


92         PURITAN  PREACHING    IN  ENGLAND 

old  and  new,  is  unfit  to  interpret  God's  ora- 
cles. The  priest's  lips  shall  preserve  knowl- 
edge, is  no  less  a  precept  to  the  minister 
than  a  promise  to  the  people."  Then,  too, 
the  life  must  correspond  to  the  teaching: 
"  He  that  preaches  well  in  his  pulpit  but  lives 
disorderly  out  of  it,  is  like  a  young  scribbler : 
what  he  writes  fair  with  his  hand,  his  sleeve 
comes  after  and  blots."  He  who  serves 
Christ  must  not  be  too  eager  after  the  ap- 
plause of  man :  "  I  do  not  call  thee  aside  to 
ask  with  what  applause  this  sermon  passeth, 
but  (it  is  all  I  would  have  and  hear)  with 
wliat  benefit  ?  I  had  rather  convert  one  soul 
than  have  a  hundred  praise  me." 

In  a  sermon  on  the  Fatal  Banquet  to  which 
Satan  invites  his  guests,  he  has,  he  says, 
many  bidders  to  his  feast.  Take  a  short 
muster  of  these  inviters,  these  bidders  to 
this  banquet  of  vanity:  they  have  all  their 
several  stands.  In  the  Court  he  hath  set 
Ambition  to  watch  for  base  minds,  that  would 
stoop  to  any  villany  for  preferment,  and  to 
bring  them  to  this  feast.  This  is  a  principal 
bidder.  In  the  Law  Courts  he  sets  inviters 
that  beckon  contention  to  them,  and  fill  the 
world  with  broils.  I  mean  the  libels  of  the 
law,  pettifoggers,  Satan's  firebrands  which  he 


THE    CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  93 

casteth  abroad  to  make  himself  sport,  and 
wlio  do  more  hurt  among  the  barley,  the 
commons  of  this  land,  than  Samson's  foxes 
with  the  fire  at  their  tails.  "  Oh,"  says  he, 
"  that  they  were  shipped  out  for  Virginia,  for 
they  cannot  live  without  making  broils  "  — 
which  is  a  little  hard  upon  Virginia,  as  we 
cannot  but  think.  Pride  is  another  bidder, 
and  keeps  a  shop  in  the  city.  You  shall  find 
a  description  of  her  shop  and  take  an  inven- 
tory of  her  wares  from  the  prophet  —  "  the 
tinkling  ornaments,  the  cauls,  and  the  moon- 
tires."  She  sits  upon  the  stall,  and  courts 
the  passengers  with  a  What  lack  ye  ?  "  Mak- 
ing a  corner "  in  the  market  seems  not  to 
have  been  so  modern  an  invention  as  we  had 
supposed,  for  Adams  tells  us  that  Engrossing 
is  another  of  Satan's  inviters  and  hath  a  large 
walk ;  sometimes  he  watcheth  the  landing  of 
a  ship ;  sometimes  he  turns  whole  loads  of 
corn  besides  the  market.  This  bidder  pre- 
vails with  many  a  citizen,  gentleman,  farmer, 
and  brings  in  infinite  guests.  Bribery  too  is 
an  officious  fellow,  and  a  special  bidder  to 
this  feast.  He  invites  both  forward  and 
f roward :  the  forward  and  yielding,  by  prom- 
ises of  good  cheer,  that  they  shall  have  a  fair 
day  of  it ;  the  backward  honest  man,  by  ter- 


94         rURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

rors  and  menaces  that  his  cause  shall  else  go 
westward.  This  kind  of  talk  from  Puritan 
books  is  now  three  centuries  old,  but  I  think 
you  will  feel  with  me  there  is  a  very  modern 
ring  about  it  and  that  it  would  not  be  much 
out  of  place  even  in  some  of  the  pulpits  of 
to-day. 

We  remember  how  Shakespeare  'makes 
Hamlet  exclaim,  "  What  a  piece  of  work  is  a 
man !  how  noble  in  reason !  how  infinite 
in  faculty !  in  form  and  moving  how  ex- 
press and  admirable  !  "  Here  is  an "  excla- 
mation by  this  other  Shakespeare  —  this 
Shakespeare  among  the  Puritans,  not  unworthy 
to  stand  beside  it,  "  Oh,  how  goodly  this 
building  of  man  appears  when  it  is  clothed 
with  beauty  and  honor !  A  face  full  of 
majesty,  the  throne  of  comeliness  wherein  the 
whiteness  of  the  lily  contends  with  the  san- 
guine of  the  rose ;  an  active  hand,  an  erected 
countenance,  an  eye  sparkling  out  lustre,  a 
smooth  complexion  arising  from  an  excellent 
temperature  and  composition.  Oh,  what  a 
workman  was  this,  that  could  raise  such  a 
fabric  out  of  the  earth,  and  lay  such  orient 
colors  upon  dust !  " 

Yet  on  the  other  hand  this  same  preacher 
has  to  pour  forth  his  sorrowful  lament  that  a 


THE    CAMBRIDGE  PURITANS  95 

bsing  so  nobly  formed  as  man  should  yet 
spiritually  be  so  insensible.  "  Isaiah,"  he 
says,  "  had  not  more  cause  for  Israel  than  we 
for  England  to  cry  —  '  We  have  labored  in 
vain,  and  spent  our  strength  for  nought.' 
We  give  God  the  worst  of  all  things  that 
hath  given  us  the  best  of  all  things.  We 
give  God  measure  for  measure,  but  after  an 
ill  manner.  For  His  blessings  '  heapen  and 
shaken  and  thrust  together,'  our  iniquities 
'  pressed  down  and  yet  running  over.'  "  With 
his  pleading  words  we  will  close  our  words 
to-flay :  "  Come,  then,  beloved  to  Jesus  Christ, 
come  freely,  come  betimes.  The  flesh  calls, 
we  come  ;  vanity  calls,  we  flock ;  the  world 
calls,  we  fly ;  let  Clu*ist  call  early  and  late, 
He  has  yet  to  say :  '  Ye  will  not  come  unto 
me  tliat  ye  might  have  life.'  " 


IV 

THOMAS    GOODWIN   AND  THE 
CAMBRIDGE   PLATONISTS 


LECTURE   IV 

THOMAS   GOODWIN  AND  THE 
CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS 

IN  the  last  lecture  om-  thoughts  were  turned 
to  the  sermons  of  two  eminent  preachers 
of  Puritan  times  —  Henry  Smith,  "  the  silver- 
tongued,"  and  Thomas  Adams,  "  the  Shake- 
speare of  the  Puritans."  While  these  ser- 
mons, however,  are  notable  examples  of 
intellectual  and  oratorical  power,  perhaps 
they  can  scarcely  be  accepted  as  typical  il- 
lustrations of  the  ordinary  Puritan  discourse  \ 
which  was  more  doctrinal  in  form,  and  in  \  ^ 
spirit  more  experimental  and  evangelical.  / 
Coleridge  said  of  certain  Anglican  authors 
that  the  cross  shines  but  dimly  in  their  writ- 
ings, and  this  remark  would  apply  to  some 
extent  to  the  two  men  just  named.  For  more 
characteristic  types  of  the  Puritan  of  the  first 
half  of  the  seventeenth  centurj'-  we  should  do 
better  to  turn  to  such  men  as  Robert  Bolton, 
the  author  of  "The  Four  Last  Things,"  or  to 
Richard  SjJbbes,  the  writer  of  the  book  entitled 


100      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

"  The  Bruised  Reed."  But  perhaps  a  better 
example  than  even  these  may  be  found  in  the 
^-^^^person  of  Dr.  Thomas  Goodwin,  whose  dis- 
courses and  treatises  in  many  volumes  have 
come  down  to  us.  During  his  life-time  he 
filled  various  positions  of  influence.  After  be- 
ing a  student  of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge, 
and  a  Fellow  of  Catherine  Hall,  he  became  a 
licensed  preacher  of  the  University,  a  London 
pastor,  a  member  of  the  Westminster  Assem- 
bly, of  Divines,  and,  under  the  Protectorate  of 
Cromwell,  President  of  Magdalen  College, 
Oxford.  It  was  by  the  merest  chance  that 
at  one  time  he  did  not  take  his  place  among 
the  Puritan  Fathers  of  New  England.  Re- 
ceiving in  1647  an  urgent  invitation  from 
John  Cotton  of  Boston  to  come  and  labor 
with  him,  he  so  far  jdelded  as  to  secure  his 
passage ;  a  large  part  of  his  valuable  libraiy 
was  actually  on  board  the  vessel ;  and  it  was 
only  at  the  last  moment  that  the  earnest  en- 
treaties of  an  attached  people  prevailed  with 
him  to  remain  among  them  as  their  pastor. 

Naturally  a  preacher's  own  religious  ex- 
perience largely  determines  the  style  of  his 
preaching.  Thomas  Goodwin  had  been 
brought  to  God  in  a  way  he  could  never 
forget.     Comparing  him  with   eminent  con: 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  101 

temporaries  like  John  Owen  and  Richard 
Baxter,  it  has  been  said  that, Owen  preached 
earnestly  to  the  understanding,  reasoning 
from  his  critical  and  devout  knowledge  of 
Scripture  ;  Baxter  preached  forcibly  to  the 
conscience,  reasoning  from  the  fitness  of  "^^ 
things ;  while  Goodwin  appealed  to  the 
spiritual  affections,  reasoning  from  his  own 
religious  experience  and  interpreting  Scrip- 
ture by  the  insight  of  a  renewed  heart.  He 
has  told  us  himself  how  a  more  than  ordinarily  ' 
definite  and  decisive  religious  experience  in- 
fluenced his  religious  beliefs,  and  disposed 
him  to  accept  the  decided,  though  not  exag- 
gerated Calvinism  for  which  he  was  distin- 
guished. It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  laid 
hold  of  by  an  invisible  hand  which  he  felt  to 
be  the  hand  of  God,  and  from  which  he  could 
not  free  himself.  Urged  one  day  by  a  fel- 
low-collegian to  enter  a  church  where  a  ser- 
mon was  to  be  preached,  he  says,  "  I  was  loath 
to  go  in,  for  I  loved  not  preaching,  especially 
not  that  kind  of  it  which  good  men  used,  and 
which  I  thought  to  be  dull  stuff."  But  as 
other  scholars  were  going  in  he  went  too,  and 
once  in,  though  he  would  have  been  glad  to 
be  out  again,  shame  made  him  stay.  "  I  was 
never,"  he  says,  "so  loath  to  hear- a  sermon  in 


102      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

my  life ; "  yet  that  sermon,  so  unwillingly 
listened  to,  as  it  went  on  laid  hold  of  heart 
and  conscience,  and  changed  all  his  life  for 
him.  Both  in  the  conviction  of  sin,  the  en- 
trance into  forgiveness  and  peace,  and  in  the 
making  of  a  full  surrender  and  consecration 
of  himself,  he  seemed  to  be  in  other  hands 
than  his  own.  "  I  thought  myself  to  be  as 
one  struck  down  by  a  mighty  power.  I  was 
strangel}^  guided  in  the  dark.  I  was  acted 
all  along  by  the  Spirit  of  God  being  upon  me, 
and  my  thoughts  passively  held  fixed.  An 
abundant  discovery  was  made  to  me  of  my 
inward  lusts  and  concupiscence.  This  new 
sort  of  illumination  gave  discovery  of  my 
heart  in  all  my  sinnings,  searched  the  lower 
rooms  of  my  heart,  as  it  were,  with  candles, 
as  the  prophet's  phrase  is." 

As  with  the  work  of  conviction,  so  with 
that  of  deliverance.  In  this,  too,  he  felt  him- 
self in  the  hands  of  God.  The  word  of 
promise,  softly  whispered  to  his  soul,  filled 
and  possessed  all  the  faculties  of  his  being. 
He  was  borne  up  by  an  assurance  that  God 
would  pardon  all  his  sins,  though  never  so 
great  for  boldness,  hardness  of  heart  and  hein- 
ousness  of  sinning,  as  He  had  pardoned  Paul. 
Yet  f ui-ther :  in  the  effort  after  full  surrender 


THE    CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  103 

of  liimself,  and  perfect  consecration  of  heart 
and  life  it  seemed  to  bim  that  he  had  but  to 
stand  still  and  see  the  salvation  of  God :  "  I 
observed  of  this  work  of  God  on  my  soul  that 
there  was  nothing  of  constraint  or  force  in  it, 
but  I  was  carried  on  with  the  most  ready  and 
willing  mind,  and  what  I  did  was  what  I 
chose  to  do.  With  the  greatest  freedom  I 
parted  with  my  sins,  formerly  as  dear  to  me 
as  the  apple  of  my  eye,  yea,  as  my  life,  and 
resolved  never  to  return  to  them  more.  And 
what  I  did  was  from  deliberate  choice ;  I  con- 
sidered what  I  was  doing,  and  reckoned  with 
myself  what  it  would  cost  me  to  make  this 
great  alteration.  What  the  world  thought  of 
these  things  hindered  me  not  at  all.  The 
weeds  that  entangled  me  in  those  waters,  I 
swam  and  broke  through  with  as  much  ease 
as  Samson  did  with  his  withes ;  for  I  was  made 
a  vassal  and  a  captive  to  another  binding, 
such  as  Paul  speaks  of." 

Possibly  to  some  people  this  may  sound 
like  old-world  talk,  which  has  grown  obsolete 
in  these  later  days.  Even  different  Christian 
men  may  look  upon  and  explain  it  differently. 
Still  there  is  more  in  it  of  living  reality  and 
firm  grasp  of  spiritual  fact  than  some  may  be 
prepared  to  admit.     And  one  thing  is  certain : 


104      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

no  man  will  ever  understand  how  Puritan 
preaching  laid  hold  of  men  as  it  did ;  made 
such  heroic,  courageous,  commanding  souls 
as  it  did,  till  he  has  accurately  gauged  a  pro- 
found religious  experience  like  that  which 
Thomas  Goodwin  has  laid  bare  for  us  in 
himself. 

And  now,  it  may  lead  to  wholesome  searcli- 
ings  of  heart  in  those  who  are  devoting  their 
lives  to  the  ministry  if  we  follow  Thomas 
Goodwin  a  step  further  and  see  the  effect  of 
this  great  spiritual  change  upon  the  deepest 
motives  of  his  life.  No  one  can  put  this  as 
he  has  put  it  himself.  "  Having  been,"  he 
says,  "  devoted  by  my  parents  for  the  work  of 
the  ministry,  I  considered  what  it  was  did 
serve  most  to  the  glory  of  God  in  the  work  of 
the  ministry,  and  that  overturned  all  the  pro- 
jects and  designs  of  my  heart  hitherto,-  which 
were  the  dearest  of  all  to  me ;  so  dear,  that  I 
would  certainly  rather  not  have  lived  than 
have  forsaken  that  interest.  The  University 
in  those  times  was  addicted  in  their  preaching 
to  a  vainglorious  eloquence,  wherein  the  wits 
did  strive  to  exceed  one  another ;  and  that 
which  I  most  of  all  affected,  in  my  foolish 
fancy,  was  to  have  preached,  for  the  matter 
thereof,  in  the  way  that  Dr.  Senhouse  of  St. 


THE    CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  105 

John's,  afterwards  made  bishop,  did  exceed  all 
men  in.  I  instance  him  to  explain  the  way 
and  model  that  I  set  up,  because  his  sermons, 
five  or  six  of  them,  are  in  print,  and  because 
it  is  the  eminentest  farrago  of  all  sorts  of 
flowers  of  wit  that  are  found  in  any  of  the 
fathers,  poets,  histories,  similitudes,  or  what- 
ever has  the  elegancy  of  wit  in  it ;  and  in  the 
joining  and  disposing  of  these  together,  wit 
was  the  eminent  orderer  in  a  promiscuous 
way.  His  way  I  took  for  my  pattern,  not 
that  I  hoped  to  attain  to  the  same  perfection, 
but  I  set  him  up  in  my  thoughts  to  imitate  as 
much  as  I  was  able.  .  .  But  my  heart,  upon 
this  my  turning  to  God  and  setting  his  glory 
as  my  resolved  end  of  all  my  actions  and  ways, 
did  soon  discover  to  me  the  unprofitableness 
of  such  a  design ;  and  I  came  to  this  resolved 
principle,  that  I  would  preach  wholly  and 
altogether  sound  and  wholesome  words,  with- 
out affectation  of  wit  and  vanity  of  eloquence. 
And  in  the  end,  this  project  of  wit  and  vain- 
glory was  wholly  sunk  in  my  heart,  and  I 
left  all,  and  have  continued  in  that  purpose 
and  practice  these  three-score  j^ears ;  and  I 
never  was  so  much  as  tempted  to  put  in  any 
of  my  own  withered  flowers  that  I  had 
gathered,   and  valued  more    than  diamonds, 


106      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

nor  have  they  offered  themselves  to  my  mem- 
ory to  the  bringing  them  into  a  sermon  to  this 
day,  but  I  have  preached  what  I  thought  was 
truly  edifying,  either  for  conversion,  or  bring- 
ing them  up  to  eternal  life." 

These  heart-utterances  from  the  pen  of  an 
old  man  in  the  evening  of  an  honored  life, 
one  feels  are  almost  too  sacred  for  public 
speech.  They  are  rather  to  be  pondered  by 
the  minister  of  Christ  when  he  is  alone  with 
God  and  upon  his  knees.  It  is  good  for  us, 
even  though  it  humble  us,  to  bare  our  hearts 
before  the  Lord,  and  ask  ourselves  what  it  is 
we  really  preach  for.  Is  it  to  make  a  liveli- 
hood, or  to  display  real  or  supposed  abilities, 
or  to  indulge  such  pleasurable  feeling  as  the 
orator  may  enjoy  in  some  excited  mood,  or  to 
win  some  passing  applause  and  gratify  a  mis- 
erable vanity  ?  The  question  of  motive  is  vital 
to  the  minister  of  Christ.  Even  in  ordinary 
life,  purity  and  sincerity  of  intention  carry 
power  with  them  and  no  counterfeit  can  take 
their  place.  The  light  enshrined  in  the  centre 
of  the  character  is  sure  to  reveal  itself  and 
shed  its  radiance  over  everything  the  man 
does.  And  while  this  is  true  of  every  man,  it 
is  especially  true  of  the  minister  of  Christ. 
Surely  it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  speak  for  God, 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  107 

to  set  forth  the  cross  of  Christ  to  men  who 
have  but  a  little  span  of  life  to  live,  and  to  do 
this  in  a  spirit  of  empty  vanity,  for  our  own 
glory  rather  than  for  His  who  sent  us.  How 
such  a  ministry  must  shrivel  before  the  search- 
ing gaze  of  Him  whose  eyes  are  as  a  flame  of 
fire  !  Let  every  man  take  heed  not  only  what 
but  hovj  he  builds  upon  the  foundation.  "  For 
each  man's  work  shall  be  made  manifest :  for 
the  day  shall  declare  it  because  it  is  revealed 
in  fire ;  and  the  fire  itself  shall  prove  each 
man's  work  of  what  sort  it  is.  If  any  man's 
work  shall  be  burned  he  shall  suffer  loss : 
but  he  himself  shall  be  saved;  yet  so  as 
through  fire." 

The  profound  sense  he  had  of  the  living 
presence  of  God  with  him,  guiding  his  steps 
and  shaping  his  deepest  religious  experience, 
led  Thomas  Goodwin,  as  we  might  expect,  to 
concern  himself  in  his  preaching  with  the 
divine  facts  of  revelation  rather  than  Avith 
the  subtleties  of  human  speculation.  There 
is  a  characteristic  sermon  of  his  entitled, 
"The  Heart  of  Christ  in  Heaven  to  sinners 
on  earth,"  which  is  a  good  example  of  his 
method.  The  purpose  of  this  sermon  was  to 
make  intensely  real  to  the  men  to  whom  he 
spoke  the  Christ  who  had  gone  beyond  the 


108      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

region  of  sight  into  the  heavens  —  to  make 
them  feel  that  He  was  as  closely  one  with 
them  in  sympathy,  and  personal  relations  of 
helpfulness  as  though  they  could  look  into 
His  face.  This  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  ac- 
complish; an  eminently  intellectual  man  of 
our  time  has  indeed  declared  it  to  be  impossi- 
ble. In  Dr.  Dale's  life  there  is  the  following 
quotation  from  Dr.  Jowett,  late  Master  of 
Balliol  College,  Oxford  :  "  Is  it  possible,"  he 
asks,  "  to  feel  a  personal  attachment  to  Christ 
such  as  is  prescribed  by  Thomas  a  Kempis? 
I  think  that  it  is  impossible,  and  contrary  to 
human  nature  that  we  should  be  able  to  con- 
centrate our  thoughts  on  a  person  scarcely 
known  to  us,  who  lived  1800  years  ago," 
On  the  other  hand,  in  the  same  biography,  we 
are  told  that  Dr.  Dale  was  once  writing  an 
Easter  sermon  and  when  half-way  through, 
the  thought  of  the  risen  Lord  broke  in  upon 
him  as  it  had  never  done  before.  "  Christ  is 
alive,"  I  said  to  myself ;  "  alive  !  and  then  I 
paused ;  —  alive  !  and  then  I  paused  again ; 
alive!  Can  that  really  be  true?  living  as 
really  as  I  myself  am  ?  I  got  up  and  walked 
about  repeating  'Christ  is  living!  Christ 
is  living!'  At  first  it  seemed  strange  and 
hardly  true,  but  at  last  it  came  upon  me  as  a 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  109 

burst  of  sudden  glory;  yes,  Christ  is  living. 
It  was  to  me  a  new  discovery,  I  thought  that 
all  alonof  I  had  believed  it ;  but  not  until  that 
moment  did  I  feel  sure  about  it.  I  then  said, 
"  My  people  shall  know  it ;  I  shall  preach 
about  it  again  and  again  until  they  believe  it 
as  I  do  now.' "  Now  that  which  Dr.  Dale 
resolved  to  set  about  doing  for  his  people  in 
Birmingham  in  the  nineteenth  century  was 
precisely  that  which  Thomas  Goodwin  set 
about  doing  for  his  people  in  London  two 
centuries  and  a  half  before.  The  problem  of 
the  modern  Englishman  was  that  of  the 
ancient  Puritan  —  how  to  make  the  Christ  of 
Eternity  a  living  and  helpful  personality  to 
men  who  had  not  seen  Him.  Let  me  in  a 
few  sentences  show  you  how  Thomas  Good- 
win sought  to  solve  this  problem. 

Proceeding  from  the  known  to  the  un- 
known he  demonstrated  what  Christ  is  to  his 
followers  now,  from  what  we  know  He  was 
to  His  disciples  once.  The  first  part  of  this 
demonstration  is  taken  from  Christ's  last 
farewell  to  His  disciples.  With  great  tender- 
ness of  feeling  he  shows  that  Our  Lord's 
symbolic  act  of  washing  the  disciples'  feet  was 
meant  as  a  token  that,  having  loved  His  own 
which  were  in  the  world,  He  loved  them  to  the 


110       rURlTAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

end;  and  further  that  he  woukl  carry  on  in 
the  heavens  the  purifying  process  he  had  fore- 
shadowed on  the  earth.  The  expression  by 
deed  of  the  overflowing  love  there  was  in  His 
heart  was  followed  by  expressions  of  the 
same  thing  in  words.  He  told  them  that  it 
was  for  their  good  He  was  leaving  them  ; 
that  they  should  not  be  left  orphans,  for  He 
would  send  the  Comforter ;  that  meantime 
He  would  be  preparing  a  place  for  them  in 
the  many  mansions  of  the  Fatlier's  House, 
and  He  would  come  again  and  receive 
them  to  Himself.  Because  He  lived  they 
should  live  also.  He  then  presently  goes 
apart  and  alone  to  His  Father  and  speaks 
over  all  again  unto  Him  that  which  He  had 
said  unto  them,  saying  behind  their  backs  of 
thein  as  much  as  He  had  said  before  their 
faces  to  tliem. 

The  second  stage  of  Goodwin's  demonstra- 
tion takes  us  from  the  scene  of  sacred  feeling 
in  the  upper  chamber  before  the  Crucifixion 
to  what  took  place  immediately  after  the 
Resurrection.  Though  these  disciples  in  the 
hour  of  crisis  had  forsaken  Him  and  fled, 
and  Peter  had  even  foully  denied  Him  yet 
His  first  word  after  his  reappearance  concern- 
ing them  was  "  Go,  tell  my  hretliren^''  even 


mA 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  111 

as  Joseph  said  to  those  who  had  so  cruelly 
wronged  him  —  "I  am  Joseph  your  brother." 
Thus  He  owns  them  as  brethren  still.  This 
was  the  message  sent  on  to  them  beforehand ; 
and  when  He  came  Himself  His  salutation 
was  "  Peace  be  unto  you ;  "  and  later  in  that 
interview  He  repeats  the  salutation.  Then 
too  when  He  was  leaving  He  further  assured 
their  hearts,  for  He  lifted  up  His  hands  and 
blessed  them.  It  was  while  He  blessed  them 
He  was  parted  from  them,  and  thus  His  last 
act  was  one  of  benediction. 

Then,  again,  no  sooner  had  He  left  them 
than  He  proceeded  to  make  good  the  promise 
He  had  made  when  with  them.  The 
Spirit  came  down  at  Pentecost  and  the 
Apostles  were  enabled  to  work  signs  and 
wonders  as  He  said  they  should.  The 
two  Apostles  Paul  and  John,  afterwards 
saw  Him  personally,  receiving  revelations 
of  His  unchanging  interest  in  and  love 
for  those  who  were  His.  And  His  very- 
last  words  in  the  very  last  book  of  Revelation 
were  words  of  welcome.  Earth  calls  upon 
heaven,  and  heaven  calls  upon  earth  as  the 
prophet  speaks.  The  bride  from  earth  says 
unto  Christ :  "  Come  to  me  ; "  and  the  Spirit 
in  the  saints'  hearts  below  say  "  Come  "  unto 


112      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

Him  also ;  and  Christ  cries  out  as  loud  from 
Heaven  "  Come "  in  answer  unto  this  desire 
in  them.  What  an  echoing  and  answer- 
ing of  hearts  and  of  desires  —  heaven  and 
earth  ring  again  of  it ! 

All  this  Goodwin  sets  forth  as  the  external 
demonstration  of  Christ's  feeling  for  men, 
from  which  he  passes  to  speak  of  the  inter- 
nal demonstration.  By  this  he  means  the 
known  feeling  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  for 
man's  salvation;  the  relationships  of  closest 
and  most  sacred  kind  among  men  by  which 
Christ  shadows  forth  his  union  with  His  own. 
He  is  the  subject  of  all  relations,  which  no 
creature  is ;  and  He  is  the  pattern  and  exem- 
plar of  these  relations,  for  tliey  are  all  but 
copies  of  His.  And  what  He  has  already 
suffered  for  His  own  makes  them  more  dear 
to  Him.  What  zealous  love  there  was  in  the 
heart  of  Paul  towards  the  converts  he  made ; 
and  what  passionate  devotion  in  the  heart  of 
Moses  towards  the  people  of  Israel  whom  he 
led,  and  shall  Christ  be  less  devoted,  less 
loving  than  they?  We  need  never  fear  that 
Christ's  great  advancement  in  heaven  should 
any  whit  alter  His  disposition :  for  this  His 
very  advancement  engageth  Him  the  more. 
Although  He  be  entered  into  the  heavens  it 


THE    CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  113 

is  to  be  a  higli-priest  there,  so  that  the  highest 
preferment  that  heaven  itself  can  bestow  upon 
Him  engageth  Him  unto  grace  and  mercy. 

I  need  not  pursue  this  examination  further, 
thougli  Thomas  Goodwin  himself  carries  his 
argument  and  demonstration  into  other  de- 
partments  of  thought.  Enough  has  been  said 
to  show  how  by  the  force  of  divine  facts  the 
men  of  the  past  sought  to  produce  divine 
results  in  their  appeals  to  men.  Perhaps, 
also,  enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the 
facts  of  divine  revelation,  when  marshalled 
and  set  in  order  before  the  minds  of  men,  are 
likely  to  be  more  powerful  than  mere  spec- 
ulations of  ours,  however  ingenious.  No 
doubt,  sermons  like  those  of  Thomas  Good- 
win's, as  read  now  on  the  printed  page,  have 
an  archaic  and  old-world  appearance  about 
them  to  us  because  they  were  spoken  in  the 
language  of  the  time.  That  kind  of  speech 
was  in  the  air  of  the  seventeenth  century ; 
and  in  this  matter  no  man  can  overstep  the 
limits  of  his  time.  He  would  be  simply  use- 
less if  he  could.  The  only  language  which 
will  reach  men  is  that  to  which  they  are 
accustomed;  and  possibly  our  speech  of  to- 
day may  sound  as  primitive  and  archaic  to 
the  men  of  tlu^ee  centuries  hence  as  that  of 

8 


-^ 


114      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

the  men  of  the  seventeenth  century  sounds 
to  us.  What  we  have  to  see  to  is  tliat  it 
shall  be  as  effective. 

And  now,  partly  by  way  of  contrast,  and 
partly  also  for  other  reasons,  let  me  introduce 
you  to  a  body  of  religious  teachers,  who, 
while  living  in  the  same  century  as  Thomas 
Goodwin,  belonged  to  a  widely  different  school 
of  thought.  Any  studj^  of  Puritan  preaching 
in  the  seventeenth  century  would  be  incom- 
plete without  some  reference  to  that  small 
body  of  remarkable  men  known  as  the  "  Cam- 
bridge Platonists,"  or,  the  "  Sect  of  Latitude 
,  Men,"  or  the  "  Latitudinarians,"  as  they  were 
(  variously  called ;  including  Benjamin  Which- 
.'  cote,  Ralph  Cudworth,  Nathanael  Culver- 
/  well,  John  Smith,  and  Henry  More.  Though 
separating  themselves  from  much  that  was 
distinctively  Puritan,  they  yet  started  from 
Puritanism  and  were  greatly  influenced  by 
it.  With  the  exception  of  Henry  More  they 
were  all  of  Emmanuel  College,  which  was 
founded  with  an  object  as  openly  Puritan 
as  it  was  safe  to  confess,  and  on  to  the  time 
of  the  Restoration  it  was  the  chosen  resort  of 
the  Puritan  party  and  the  training-place  of 
Puritan  divines.  It  was  there  that  Bradshaw, 
the  president  of  the  Court  which  condemned 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PL  A  TO  N I  ST S  115 

Charles  I.,  was  bred ;  it  was  there,  too,  that 
Cromwell  placed  his  ablest  son,  Henry ;  from 
it  came  Sir  Philip  Meadows,  one  of  Crom- 
well's Latin  Secretaries ;  and  also  a  long  list 
of  ejected  rectors  and  Nonconformist  preach- 
ers. It  was  there,  also,  that  John  Harvard 
was  trained  and  many  other  of  those  di- 
vines who  sought  over  here  that  freedom 
in  preaching  they  could  not  have  in  their 
own  land. 

The  year  1644  marks  the  rise  of  the  new 
school  of  Cambridge  Platonists.  In  that  year 
the  Long  Parliament  having  overtlirown  the 
Laudian  party  proceeded  to  remodel  Cam- 
bridge University  in  a  Puritan  direction. 
John  Cotton's  Cousin,  Anthony  Tuckney, 
who  succeeded  him  as  Vicar  of  Boston,  was 
made  Master  of  Emmanuel ;  Dr.  Hill  who 
was  of  Emmanuel,  and  who  also  had  been 
John  Cotton's  colleague  at  Boston,  was  placed 
at  the  head  of  Trinity  College  ;  and  Benja- 
min Whichcote,  who,  in  his  undergraduate 
days,  had  had  Anthony  Tuckney  as  his  tutor 
at  Emmanuel,  was  made  Provost  of  King's, 
succeeding  Dr.  Collins,  who  had  been  ejected 
by  Parliament.  Thus  these  friends,  "very 
dear  to  each  other,"  and  all  of  them  Emman- 
uel   men,    became   the    leading  spirits,    and 


116      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

largely  the  formative  influence,  of  the  Uni- 
versity. Up  to  this  point,  therefore,  we  may 
assume  that  Benjamin  Whichcote^  afterwards 
the  foremost  man  among  the  Cambridge  Pla- 
tonists,  stood  high  in  repute  with  the  Puritan 
authorities  of  the  time. 

He  is  described  as  the  great  University 
preacher  of  the  Commonwealth.  What  Chad- 
erton  and  Perkins  had  been  in  the  days  of 
Elizabeth,  Whichcote  was  half  a  century  later. 
Archbishop  ^Tillotsoii,  in  his  younger  days 
one  of  Whichcote's  admirers,  tells  us  that 
his  regular  Sunday  afternoon  lecture  in  the 
chapel  of  Trinity  College  drew  crowds  "  not 
only  of  the  young  scholars,  but  of  those  of 
greater  standing,  and  best  repute  for  learn- 
ing in  the  University,"  and  that  he  contrib- 
uted "  more  to  the  forming  of  the  students 
of  that  University  in  a  sober  sense  of  religion 
than  any  man  in  that  age."  His  great  sphere 
of  influence  was  the  pulpit.  He  had  the 
true  oratorical  temperament  which  is  at  its 
best  when  face  to  face  with  an  audience. 
In  preaching  he  used  "  no  other  than  very 
short  notes,  not  very  legible,"  and,  as  with 
Frederick  Robertson,  the  sermons  we  have 
of  his  were  either  printed  from  his  own 
rough  notes,  or  from   shorthand  reports   of 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  117 

admiring  hearers,  and  did  not  appear  till 
after  his  death,  the  most  complete  edition 
being  that  published  in  Aberdeen  as  late  as 
1751. 

So  completely  was  Whichcote  identified 
with  the  Puritans  in  public  estimation  that 
at  the  Restoration  he  shared  the  fate  of  the 
Puritan  leaders,  being  removed  from  the 
provostship  by  especial  order  of  the  King. 
Yet  on  the  other  hand  so  widely  had  he 
serrated  from  the  Puritans  in  his  theologi- 
cal system  mat  in  1651  Anthony  Tuckney 
who,  as  we  have  said,  had  been  his  tutor  at 
Emmanuel,  and  who  was  his  senior  by  ten 
years,  felt  it  right  seriously  to  remonstrate 
with  liim.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year 
Tuckney,  writing  to  him,  says :  "  I  desire  to 
be  so  ingenuous  with  you  as  out  of  that 
ancient  and  still  continued  love  I  bear  you, 
to  have  leave  to  tell  you  that  nxj  heart  hath 
been  much  exercised  about  you;  and  that 
especially  since  your  being  Vice-Chancellor 
I  have  seldom  heard  you  preach  but  some- 
thing hath  been  delivered  by  you,  and  that 
so  authoritatively,  and  with  the  big  words  — 
sometimes  of  'divinest  reason,'  and  some- 
times of  'more  than  mathematical  demon- 
stration '  —  that  hath  very  much  grieved  me, 


118      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

and  I  believe  others  with  me ;  and  yesterday 
as  much  as  any  time," 

As  we  read  these  words  of  the  elder  to  the 
yqunger  man,  breathing  an  ancient  affection 
and  at  the  same  time  an  anxious  fear,  we 
feel  inclined  to  ask  what  are  the  matters  in 
controversy  between  them  ?  While  both  are 
regarded  as  Puritans  by  the  authorities  of  the 
time,  how  is  it  that  the  Master  of  Emmanuel 
feels  it  his  duty  gravely  to  protest  against 
the  religious  teaching  of  the  Provost  of 
King's,  who  is  also  Vice-Chancellor  of  the 
University?  Is  this  one  of  those  controver- 
sies which  are  now  dead  and  done  with,  or 
is  it  one  which  has  still  important  lessons 
for  the  preachers  of  our  own  time  ?  Por  an 
answer  to  these  questions  let  us  briefly  exam- 
ine this  Cambridge  movement  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  find  out,  if  we  can,  what 
were  its  strong  and  attractive  points,  and  in 
what  directions  its  weakness  lay. 

That  there  were  many  attractive  featiu'es 
about  the  Cambridge  Platonists  no  one  can 
deny  who  has  at  all  caught  the  spirit  of  their 
lives  and  teaching.  There  is  an  undoubted 
charm  about  them  while,  as  spectators  of  the 
Avorld  only  through  the  loopholes  of  retreat, 
they  dwelt  upon  the  visions  of  the  "  supreme 


THE    CAMBRIDGE  PLATOXISTS  ll9 

Beautiful  and  Good,"  and  left  us  a  legacy 
of  noble  thoughts.  We  cannot  but  admire 
the  calm  philosophic  spirit  of  men  who 
"studied  to  propagate  better  thoughts,  to 
take  men  off  from  being  in  parties,  or  from 
narrow  notions,  from  superstitious  conceits 
and  a  fierceness  about  opinions."  In  days 
when  so  many  writers  are  pessimistic  we 
cannot  but  envy  the  optimism  of  men  who 
were  wholly  strangers  to  the  gloom  and  the 
pain  and  the  self-annihilation  of  other  mys- 
tics ;  who  permitted  no  clouds,  no  threaten- 
ing darkness  to  dim  their  eyes  as  they  ascend 
the  hill  of  vision ;  and  for  whom,  as  it  has 
been  said,  the  prospect  expands  as  they  go 
on  their  way  rejoicing,  until  the  enlightened 
spirit  sees  the  shady  city  of  palm-trees,  and 
beyond,  the  sparkling  towers  of  the  New 
Jerusalem. 

The  object  of  Wliichcote  and  his  followers 
was  to  unite  philosophy  and__religion  in  their 
scheme  of  thought  and  to  confirm  the  union  -^ 
on  the  indestructibLe  basis  of  reason  and  the 
essential  elements  of  oui^^igher^  humanity. 
Their  admirers  claim  for  them  that  theirs  was 
the  first  elaborate  attempt  to  wed  Christianity 
and  philosoph}'-  made  by  any  Protestant  school, 
and  indeed  the  first  true  attempt  of  the  kind 


120      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

since  the  days  of  the  great  Alexandiine 
teachers.  Their  experiment  therefore  should 
be  of  the  deepest  interest  to  us  who  are 
preachers,  who  are  convinced  ourselves  and 
wish  to  convince  others,  that  the  highest  truths 
in  revelation  are  conformable  to  the  highest 
reason  in  man  ;  that,  as  they  put  it,  "  nothing 
is  true  in  divinity  which  is  false  in  philos- 
ophy." Did  they  succeed,  and  if  not,  how 
may  we  account  for  their  failure  ?  As  to  the 
fact,  at  all  events  of  his  comparative  failure, 
we  have  the  admission  of  Whichcote's  own 
admirers.  It  is  admitted  that  he  failed  to 
influence  English  speculation  permanently ; 
that,  while  he  inspired  his  hearers,  men  of 
great  and  varied  power  —  Smith  and  More, 
Worthington  and  Cudworth,  Patrick  and  Til- 
lotson,  he  founded  no  school,  and  left  no  suc- 
cessors in  the  third  generation.  My  own 
impression  is  that  if  his  influence  lingered  on 
into  the  eighteenth  century  it  merely  strength- 
ened that  cold  rationalism  which  for  nearly 
a  whole  century  went  far  towards  killing  all 
spiritual  religion  in  the  Church  of  England. 
The  causes  of  failure  are  not  without  in- 
struction to  the  preachers  of  to-day.  Let  me 
briefly  point  out  what  they  were. 

1.  It  appears  to   me   that   Whichcote   did 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  121 

not  sufficiently  discriminate  between  man's 
natural  reason  and  his  spiritual  faculty.  We 
should  all  be  disposed  to  accept  his  cen- 
tral principle,  which  was  —  the  essential 
unity  of  all  truth,  natural  and  revealed, 
and  its  affinity  to  the  constitution  of  man. 
We  should  maintain  with  him  that  what- 
soever things  are  to  be  found  in  any  of 
the  wise  teachers  of  the  past,  that  are  true, 
were  in  God  before  they  were  in  them,  and 
have  their  place  in  that  Kingdom  of  truth, 
of  which  our  Lord  is  King.  We  quite  go 
with  him  too  when  he  says  that  "  a  man  has 
as  much  right  to  use  his  own  understanding 
in  judging  of  truth,  as  he  has  a  right  to  use 
his  o-wn  eyes  to  see  his  way ;  "  and  we  feel 
that  he  utters  a  pungent  truth  which  all 
preacliers  would  do  well  to  remember  when 
he  says :  "  I  have  always  found  that  such 
preaching  of  others  hath  most  commanded 
my  heart  which  hath  most  illuminated  my 
head."  But  we  pause  and  dissent  when  in 
the  matter  of  the  religious  life  he  so  glorifies 
the  natural  reason  as  to  say  that  "  to  go 
against  reason  is  to  go  against  God ;  "  that  it 
"  is  the  Divine  Governor  of  man's  life :  it  is 
the  very  voice  of  God ; "  that  it  "  discovers 
what  is  natural,  and  receives  what  is  super- 


122      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

natural."  On  j^hilosopMcal  grounds  we  should 
be  disposed  to  argue  with  Martineau  that  we 
cannot  credit  the  intellect  with  the  moral 
apprehensions  ;  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
mere  presence  of  intelligence  to  supply  the 
defect  of  moral  consciousness ;  and  that  the 
moral  sentiments  cannot  be  resolved  into 
modes  of  intellectual  apprehension  and  de- 
duced from  the  essentials  of  Reason.  For 
knowledge  is  the  apprehension  of  what  is, 
while  morality  (on  its  cognitive  side)  is  the 
apprehension  of  what  ought  to  he  —  and  these 
are  different  spheres.  Then,  too,  on  religious 
grounds  Whichcote's  theory  will  not  stand 
the  test  of  facts.  He  meant  by  '  reason '  very 
much  what  Paul  meant  by  '  wisdom '  and 
Paul  affirms  that  after  centuries  of  experi- 
ment it  was  clearly  proved  that  "  the  world 
through  its  wisdom  knew  not  God."  After 
all,  experience  goes  to  show  that  "spiritual 
things  are  spiritually  discerned,"  and  the  sin 
of  man's  life  has  an  awful  power  in  dimming, 
and  even  in  destroying,  his  spiritual  discern- 
ment. Since  men  while  knowing  God,  glori- 
fied Him  not  as  God,  they  became  vain  in 
their  reasonings  and  their  senseless  heart  was 
darkened.  Before  man's  reason,  therefore, 
can  become  a  perfect  instrument  for  the  dis- 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  123 

covery  of  spiritual  truth  man  himself  must 
be  spiritually  reconstructed  and  divinely 
illuminated. 

2.  Another  explanation  of  Whichcote's 
comparative  failure  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  he  sacrificed,  or  at  least  minimized,  im- 
portant trutlis  in  order  to  secure  intellectual 
unity  of  expression.  His  system  of  thought 
was  a  reaction  from  that  of  Puritanism,  which 
had  become  too  rigid  and  creed-bound,  and 
the  tendency  of  all  reaction  is  to  go  to  an 
opposite  extreme.  In  the  second  stage  of 
the  Reformation  the  principle  of  authority  in 
the  Church  had  too  much  superseded  the 
principle  of  enquiry;  and  Whichcote  felt 
that  Theology  as  systematized  with  logical 
precision  in  the  Westminster  Confession  was 
not  the  final  word.  It  did  not  entirely  cover, 
or  completely  meet,  the  actual  facts  of  daily 
experience.  It  seemed  to  him,  therefore,  that 
the  real  test  ol  truth  of  which  he  was  in 
search  was  to  be  found  in  character  and 
conduct,  that  truth  was  the  soul  in  action. 
For  the  formula  :  "  I  think,  therefore  I  am  " 
he  would  substitute  :  "  I  act,  therefore  I  am  ;  " 
"  I  do,  therefore  I  have  being,"  and  affirmed 
that  it  is  by  action  answering  to  knowledge 
that  character  is  slowly  shaped  according  to 


124      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

an  inevitable  law.  This  being  so,  he  would 
have  said,  I^et  us-  not  trouble  ourselves  about 
dogma,  let  us  unite  in  worship.  Unity  of 
religious  opinion  is  evidently  impossible ; 
there  is  the  more  need,  therefore,  of  commu- 
nity of  religious  life.  The  true  Church  is  not 
the  Church  resting  in  this  creed  or  that,  pro- 
claiming this  type  of  doctrine  or  that,  but  the 
company  of  the  faithful  owning  Christ  as 
their  Lord.  The  Church  subsists  in  commun- 
ion of  spirit,  not  in  coincidence  of  doctrine. 
It  has  a  common  faith  —  it  may  have  a 
common  worship ;  but  it  is  not  bound  to  any 
definite  type  of  theology  —  any  argumenta- 
tive or  theoretic  creed. 

Coleridge  said  that  the  Cambridge  Platon- 
ists  were  not  so  much  Platonists  as  Plotinists 
and  here  is  one  of  the  signs  of  it.  For  Neo- 
Platonism  sought  to  reduce  all  forms  of  truth 
to  one  general  amalgam.  Plotinus,  looking 
round  upon  Platonist  and  Aristotelian,  Sophist 
and  Sensualist,  Epicurean  and  Stoic,  would 
have  said:  "  Repudiate  these  partial  scholars. 
Leave  them  to  their  disputes,  pass  over  their 
systems,  already  tottering  for  lack  of  a  foun- 
dation, and  be  it  yours  to  show  how  their 
teachers  join  hands  above  them.  In  such 
a   spirit   of    reverent   enthusiasm    you   may 


TEE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  125 

attain  a  higher  unity.  You  mount  in  specu- 
lation, and  from  that  height  ordain  all  nobler 
actions  for  your  lower  life."  Again  the 
same  tiling  was  repeated  when  in  the  fifteenth 
century  there  was  in  Florence  a  revival  of 
Neo-Platonism  under  Gemisthus  Pletho  and 
Ids  companions,  Nicholas  of  Cusa  and  Pico 
of  Mirandola.  These  men  dreamed  that  it 
was  possible  to  set  up  a  philosophic  worship, 
emasculated  and  universal  which  should  har- 
monize in  a  common  vagueness  all  the  re- 
ligions of  the  world.  It  has  been  well  said 
that  they  forgot  that  lip-homage  paid  to  all 
religions  is  a  virtual  denial  of  each,  and  that 
it  is  possible  so  to  combine  religion  and  phil- 
osophy as  to  rob  philosophy  of  its  only  princi- 
ple and  religion  of  its  only  power.  It  was 
so  in  another  form  with  the  Cambridge  Pla- 
tonists.  The  attempt  to  separate  religious 
worship  from  religious  conviction  landed 
them  in  intellectual  unreality.  Contemporary 
writers  dwell  upon  the  hearty  subscription 
which  these  men  gave  to  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  of  the  Church  of  England.  But 
it  turns  out  that  this  hearty  subscription  was 
very  much  like  that  which  John  Henry 
Newman  gave  to  these  same  Articles  some  two 
centuries  later  when   in  Tract   No.  XC.   he 


126      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

showed  that  they  meant  only  what  he  per- 
sonally wanted  them  to  mean.  The  subscrip- 
tion of  these  Cambridge  divines  merely  implied 
acceptance  of  the  Articles  as  "  instruments 
of  peace."  Bishop  Fowler  defends  this  un- 
reality —  we  may  go  further  and  say  this 
double-dealing  —  by  quoting  these  ominous 
words  from  Archbishop  Ussher :  "  We  do 
not  suffer  any  man  to  reject  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  of  the  Church  of  England  at  his 
pleasure ;  yet  neither  do  we  look  upon  them 
as  essentials  of  saving  faith,  or  legacies  of 
Christ  and  His  Apostles ;  but  in  a  mean, 
as  pious  opinions  fitted  for  the  preservation 
of  unity :  neither  do  we  oblige  any  man 
to  believe  them,  but  only  not  to  contradict 
them."  You  will  probably  feel  with  me  that 
this  kind  of  talk  is  not  calculated  to  win  our 
respect,  and  that  if  a  man  in  ordinary  busi- 
ness signed  a  contract  in  the  easy-going 
fashion  in  which  these  men  are  said  to  have 
subscribed  the  Articles  we  should  know  what 
to  think  of  him. 

All  this  has  its  instructive  side  for  the 
preachers  of  to-day.  It  shows  us  that  nothing 
permanently  succeeds  in  the  way  of  religious 
teaching  except  a  clear  and  unreserved  set- 
ting forth  of  the  distinctive  facts  and  truths 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS  127 

of  God's  own  revelation.  Every  true  man, 
of  course,  will  try  to  see  these  facts  and  truths 
with  his  own  eyes  but  he  must  never  substi- 
tute his  own  speculations,  however  original 
and  ingenious,  for  the  authoritative  revela- 
tions of  God.  To  the  extent  to  which  he 
yields  to  this  temptation  his  ministry  will  be 
powerless.  Man's  speculations  change  with 
changing  times,  but  the  Word  of  the  Lord 
endureth  forever.  Thrice  has  the  effort  been 
made  to  render  the  abstractions  of  a  philoso- 
phized religion  a  power  among  men,  and 
thrice  it  has  failed.  Earnest-minded  men  feel 
that  it  is  puerile  and  powerless,  and  they  will 
have  none  of  it ;  while  the  careless  and  super- 
stitious remain  careless  and  superstitious  still. 
Man's  passions  and  worldliness  of  heart  are 
not  to  be  beaten  down  by  mere  straws  of  our 
making.  They  can  only  be  overcome  by  that 
which  has  God's  own  power  in  it.  For  a 
preacher  to  refine  away  what  is  most  distinc- 
tive of  divine  revelation  and  then  to  subtilize 
the  rest  into  a  mere  sentimental  theism  is  to 
court  predestined  failure.  It  has  been  tried 
under  the  most  favorable  conditions  by  some 
of  the  ablest  and  most  learned  of  men.  If 
it  failed  in  their  hands,  and  it  did  fail,  it  is 
not  likely  to  succeed  with  others.    A  religion 


128      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

that  can  only  live  in  the  study  and  on  the 
heights  of  intellectual  speculation,  that  de- 
mands philosophic  culture  as  an  indispensa- 
ble condition  may  suit  men  of  an  aristocratic 
spirit,  but  it  will  never  meet  the  wants  of 
the  great  body  of  the  people  who,  often  under 
hard  and  sorrowful  conditions,  are  fighting 
the  battle  of  life.  There  is  room  and  need 
in  the  Christian  pulpit  for  the  loftiest  genius 
and  the  profoundest  learning,  but  the  word 
to  be  delivered  must  be  that  which  went 
forth  from  the  carpenter's  lowly  roof,  and 
was  first  published  abroad  by  fishermen  and 
tent-makers  of  old. 


I 


JOHN   BUNYAN    AS    A    LIFE-STUDY 
FOR  PREACHERS 


LECTURE  V 

JOHN     BUNYAN     AS      A      LIFE-STUDY 
FOE,  PREACHERS 

HITHERTO  in  these  lectures  we  have  fol- 
lowed the  unfoldings  of  Puritanism,  so 
far  as  the  preaching  of  the  Puritans  was  con- 
cerned, on  to  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  To-day  we  pass  from  tlie  Comnion- 
wealth  period  to  that  which  followed  the 
Restoration  of  the  monarchy  in  England, 
during  which,  through  the  passing  of  the  Act  ^ 
of  ^.Uniformity  in  1662,  PuxitaBisni^  almost  ~^ 
ceased  to  be  described  as  such  and  came  to 
be  more  generally  known  as  -Nonconformity. ' 
Looked  at  on  one  side  —  the  side  of  the  suf- 
ferings and  hardships  endured,  the  twenty- 
eight  years  between  1660,  the  year  of  the 
Restoration,  and  1688,  the  year  of  the  Great 
Revolution,  may  be  described  as  the  period  of 
the  wilderness  wandering  of  the  Church  of 
God  in  England.  Looked  at  on  the  other 
side  —  the  side  which  displayed  the  bravery 
and  steadfastness  of  the  men  who  were  loyal 
to  conscience,  even  to  bonds  and  imprison- 


132      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

ment,  it  may  be  described  as  the  heroic  period 
of  Free  Church  life.  The  men  who  mainly 
were  the  makers  of  that  period  are  eminently 
worthy  of  our  consideration  also  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  preacher  and  the  pastor : 
I  propose,  therefore,  setting  some  of  the  fore- 
most of  them  before  you  for  purposes  of  sugges- 
tion and  instruction.  As  to  who  shall  be  the 
first  of  these,  the  choice  seems  largely  deter- 
mined for  me  by  my  own  personal  surround- 
ings. For  the  last  five-and-thirty  years  I  have 
had  the  honor  to  be  the  minister  of  the  church 
at  Bedford  of  which  John  Bunyan  was  minister 
during  the  last  sixteen  years  of  his  life.  As 
circumstances  have  thus  made  me  somewhat 
familiar  with  the  work  he  did  and  the  spirit 
in  which  he  did  it,  I  ventured  to  think  that 
you  would  not  be  impatient  with  me  if  be- 
fore you  who  are  to  be  ministers  of  Clirist, 
I  were  to  set  forth  John  Bunyan  as  a  life- 
study  for  preachers. 
•—  The  methods  of  great  artists  are  charged 
with  instruction  for  those  to  whom  Art  is  to 
be  the  masterwork  of  life.  It  is  the  province 
of  genius  to  touch  life  livingly,  as  by  a  sort 
of  instinct,  to  open  out  new  paths  of  light 
Avhich  other  feet  may  traverse.  No  doubt 
every  man  will  do  his  best  work  by  simply 


JOHN  BUN  TAN  133 

being  himself,  and  no  mere  copy  of  some  one 
else.  Imitations  are  usually  failures.  Still, 
even  the  most  original  artist  may  find  it 
worth  while  to  make  a  study  of  color  and 
form  as  exemplified  in  the  best  works  of  the 
Great  Masters ;  and  true  men  may  receive 
stimulus  and  help  by  carefully  noting  how 
true  men  have  done  their  work  before  them. 
John  Bunyan  is  chiefly  thought  of  as  a 
Dreamer  of  wonderful  dreams,  but  he  was 
also,  as  his  contemporaries  have  told  us,  one 
of  the  most  living  preachers  England  has  ever 
known.  His  own  intense  religious  experi- 
ence largely  aided  his  genius  in  this.  As  he 
tells  us  himself,  he  had  tarried  long  at  Sinai 
to  see  the  fire  and  the  cloud  and  the  dark- 
ness, that  he  might  fear  the  Lord  all  the  daj^s 
of  his  life  upon  earth,  and  tell  of  his  wonders 
to  others.  So  that  when,  in  after  days,  he 
spoke  with  kindling  eye  and  tongue  of  fire 
the  things  he  had  seen  and  felt,  men  bent  to 
his  words  as  the  corn  bends  to  the  wind.  No 
piler-up  of  mere  rhetoric  was  this  Dreamer 
of  Bedford,  but  one  deeply  learned  in  the 
lore  of  human  souls,  heaven-taught  in  the 
great  and  wonderful  art  of  laying  hold  of 
men. 

It   so    happens     that    in    the    memorable 


134     PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

Dream  by  which  Bunyan  will  always  be 
best  known  he  has  in  several  ways  given  us 
his  conception  of  what  the  minister  of  Christ 
ought  to  be  and  to  do.  Few  things  are  more 
characteristic  of  this  man  than  the  high  ideal 
he  had  formed  for  himself  of  the  office  and 
work  of  the  Christian  minister.  It  was  not 
the  ecclesiastical  greatness  of  the  man  which 
impressed  him,  for  he  had  a  withering  scorn 
for  the  mere  priest,  for  those  unreal  men  who 
had  come  into  the  priest's  office  for  a  piece  of 
bread  and  whom  he  was  wont  to  describe  as 
'  the  carnal  ministry  '  —  not  the  ecclesiastical 
greatness  of  the  man  as  a  mere  official,  but 
the  greatness  of  his  work  as  one  dealing  with 
human  souls  as  the  messenger  of  God.  Of 
this  work,  I  say,  Bunyan  had  a  very  high 
ideal,  let  me  first  show  you  what  that  ideal 
was,  as  we  gather  it  from  various  scenes  and 
characters  in  his  Pilgrim  story,  and  then  let 
us  see  how  he  worked  out  his  ideal  in  his 
own  life  and  ministry. 

You  will  remember  that  part  of  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress  where  Christian  arrives  at 
the  house  of  the  Interpreter.  "  Come  in," 
said  the  Interj)reter,  "  I  will  show  thee  what 
will  be  profitable  to  thee."  Whereupon  he 
had  him  into  a  private  room  and  bid  his  man 


JOHN  BUN Y AN  135 

open  a  door  —  ''  the  which  when  lie  had  done, 
Christian  saw  the  picture  of  a  very  grave 
person  hang  up  against  the  wall;  and  this 
was  the  fashion  of  it :  It  had  eyes  uplift  to 
Heaven,  the  best  of  Books  in  his  hand,  the 
law  of  Truth  was  written  upon  his  lips,  the 
world  was  behind  his  back ;  it  stood  as  if  it 
pleaded  with  men,  and  a  crown  of  gold  did 
hang  over  its  head."  When,  five-and-twenty 
years  ago,  a  statue  of  Banyan  was  set  up  to 
his  honor  in  Bedford  town,  the  sculptor  took 
that  picture  from  the  House  of  the  Interpreter 
and  embodied  it  in  the  bronze  statue.  So  to 
all  passers-by  to-day  Bunyan  in  his  Q^gj 
stands  there  with  eyes  uplift  to  Heaven,  the 
best  of  Books  in  his  hand,  and  as  if  he  pleaded 
with  men.  Thus,  so  far  as  sculpture  is  con- 
cerned, he  is  made  to  realize  his  own  ideal, 
which,  also  in  life,  he  largely  did.  "  What 
means  this  ?  "  asks  Christian,  as  he  looks  at 
that  picture  on  the  wall.  Let  us,  in  a  sen- 
tence or  two,  see  what  it  means  : 

The  Preacher,  as  Bunyan  conceives  of 
him,  "has  eyes  lifted  up  to  Heaven,"  for 
from  thence  comes  his  commission,  and  from 
thence  also  his  sufficiency  and  strength: 
"The  best  of  Books  is  in  hand,"  for  he  is 
the  setter-f orth  of  a  divine  revelation  :   "  his 


136      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

work  is  to  know  and  unfold  dark  things  to 
sinners ;  "  he  has  not  to  tell  men  merely 
what  he  thinks,  but  what  God  thinks,  what 
God  has  said  and  done.  "  The  law  of  truth 
is  written  upon  his  lips,"  for  he  aims  ever  at 
reality,  he  is  a  genuine  man  through  and 
through,  transparently  sincere,  having  no 
faith  in  pious  make-believes,  or  unreality  of 
any  sort  or  kind.  "  The  world  is  behind  his 
back ; "  which  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  the 
spirit  of  the  world  is  not  his  spirit,  its  ambi- 
tions are  not  his,  and  the  rewards  it  can  offer 
have  little  attraction  for  him,  for  a  greater 
world  is  risen  to  his  view,  and  the  less  fades 
before  the  greater.  "  He  stands  as  if  he 
pleaded  with  men ;  "  he  has  in  his  heart  the 
love,  the  divine  compassion  for  men  which 
were  in  Christ's  heart ;  he  pleads  with  them 
for  their  own  souls'  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of 
Him  who  died  for  their  souls  —  pleads  as  the 
mother  pleads  with  her  boy  whom  she  loves 
as  her  own  life.  Finally,  over  the  head  of 
the  man  seen  in  the  Picture  "  there  did  hang 
a  crown  of  gold ;  that  is  to  show  thee  that, 
slighting  and  despising  the  things  that  are 
present,  for  the  love  that  he  hath  to  his  Mas- 
ter's service,  he  is  sure  in  the  world  that 
comes  next  to  have  glory  for  his  reward." 


JOHN  BUN Y AN  137 

When  the  long  day's  work  is  done  and  "  the 
Chief  Slieplierd  shall  appear  ye  shall  receive 
the  crown  of  glory  that  fadeth  not  away." 
May  I  not,  as  I  pass  on,  say  to  every  Divinity 
student  what  the  Interpreter  said  to  Christian 
— "  Wherefore  take  good  heed  to  what  I 
have  showed  thee,  and  bear  well  in  thy  mind 
what  thou  hast  seen." 

But  besides  this  instructive  picture  on  the 
wall,  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  Bunyan  pre- 
sents a  many-sided  ministry  in  action  and 
life.  He  supplements  that  picture  by  a 
varied  succession  of  characters  which  appear 
on  the  scene  of  his  story,  and  sustain  help- 
ful relations  to  one  and  another  of  the  many 
pilgrims  whom  we  see  on  their  way  to  the 
City  of  God.  P^'irst  we  have  Evangelist^  who 
is  the  Christian  Minister  scarcely,  if  at  all, 
transformed  by  the  requirements  of  the  alle- 
gory. As  his  name  implies,  he  is  the  pro- 
claimer  of  an  Evangel,  he  has  good  tidings  to 
tell.  The  story  opens  before  us  with  the 
sight  of  a  man  greatly  distressed  in  mind, 
and  out  of  whose  lips  as  he  wanders  the  fields 
there  comes  the  pitiful  cry,  "What  must  I 
do  to  be  saved  ?  "  He  is,  he  says,  not  willing 
to  die  nor  able  to  come  to  judgment,  and  he 
is  afraid  the  burden  upon  his  back  will  sink 


\ 


138      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

him  lower  than  the  grave.  This  is  the  sort 
of  man  with  whom,  of  all  others,  Evangelist 
loves  to  deal.  With  brotherly  heart  he  says 
to  him  —  "  Do  you  see  yonder  wicket  gate  ? 
No.  Then  do  you  see  yonder  shining  light  ? 
You  think  you  do.  Well,  keep  that  light  in 
your  eye  and  follow  it  till  you  see  the  gate." 
There  you  have  the  Christian  Minister  in  the 
character  in  which  I  trust  it  will  be  the  pleas- 
ure of  your  own  life  to  be  found  through  the 
years  God  may  spare  you  to  work  for  Him  — 
as  the  guide  of  sin-stricken,  salvation-seeking 
souls.  All  things  are  of  God,  who  reconciled 
us  to  Himself  through  Christ,  and  gave  unto 
us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation. 

And  now  let  me  take  you  to  the  Palace 
Beautiful  for  another  phase  of  your  life-work 
as  the  ministers  of  Christ.  There  at  the  gate 
stands  Watchful^  the  porter,  with  kindly  word 
giving  welcome  to  the  man  who,  with  timid, 
trembling  step,  has  just  come  past  the  lions  in 
the  way.  Before  introducing  the  pilgrim  to  the 
rest  of  the  household  he  has  free  and  friendly 
talk  with  him ;  finds  out  what  sort  of  man  he 
is,  where  he  comes  from,  and  whither  he  is 
bound.  So  that  in  JVatehful  we  have  the 
Christian  minister  in  his  function  as  president 
of   the  church ;    feeling  himself  responsible, 


JOHN  BUNYAN  139 

as  to  some  extent  he  is  responsible,  for  the 
spiritual  character  of  the  community  com- 
mitted to  his  charge.  He  is  right  brotherly 
and  kind,  still  his  name  is  Watchful.  He 
knows  that  he  is  only  a  steward,  and  that  it 
is  required  in  stewards  that  a  man  be  found 
faithful.  He  is  conscious  that  he  has  no 
authority  to  make  a  church  of  Clirist  other 
than  Christ  meant  it  to  be  :  and  he  is  aware 
that  when  churches  cease  to  be  made  up  of 
spiritual  men  they  cease  to  be  churches  at 
all;  that  if  you  bring  the  world  into  the 
Church  you  have  destroyed  the  Church  and 
you  have  not  benefited  the  world ;  that  if  the 
salt  have  lost  its  savor  there  is  nothing  on 
earth  more  pungent  than  itself  to  give  it  back 
its  saltness. 

Yet  again :  while  the  minister  of  Christ  is 
to  be  Evangelist^  the  proclaimer  of  truth,  and 
Watchful^  the  porter  at  the  gate,  he  is  also  to 
sustain  certain  important  relations  towards 
the  brotherhood  within.  He  must  be  a  man 
among  men,  the  guide  of  pilgrims,  the  cham- 
pion of  right,  the  consoler  of  sorrow,  the 
inspirer  of  hope  —  in  short,  according  to 
Bunyan's  idea,  he  must  be  the  Greatlieart  of 
the  Christian  pilgrimage.  Mr.  Greatheart  is 
the  man-servant   of   Interpreter,   the   guide, 


140      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

conductor,  and  protector  of  pilgrims  :  "  I  am," 
said  he,  "  at  my  Lord's  commandment.  I 
have  it  in  commission  to  comfort  the  feeble- 
minded, to  support  the  weak."  Other  work 
also  has  he  to  do  at  times,  not  more  manly, 
but  more  resolute,  for  again  and  again  there 
comes  to  him  the  call  to  go  into  action  against 
wrong.  "  I  have  a  commandment  to  resist 
sin,  to  overcome  evil,  to  fight  the  good  fight 
of  faith."  The  Christian  pastor,  then,  in  the 
character  of  Greatheart,  is  to  be  the  leader  of 
men,  as  manly  as  he  is  Christian,  Immanly 
touching  life  at  all  points,  a  living,  large- 
hearted  man  among  living  men,  women,  and 
children.  While  being  the  preacher  and 
teacher  he  is  also  to  be  the  spiritual  guide  of 
human  souls  amidst  the  perils  and  perplexi- 
ties of  their  pilgrimage.  It  is  a  great  gift, 
and  a  greater  privilege  to  be  this  wisely,  and 
men  are  grateful  indeed  when  they  meet  a 
real  man,  who,  to  use  George  Foxe's  phrase, 
can  speak  to  their  condition.  Some  men  who 
are  not  ministers  have  this  gift,  and  there  are 
ministers  who  have  it  not.  There  is  a  divine 
art  in  dealing  with  men  not  to  be  learnt  all 
at  once,  not  to  be  acquired  in  lecture  halls  or 
from  books,  but  on  your  knees  in  communion 
with  God,  and  in  the  daily  experiences  of 


JOHN  BUN Y AN  141 

life  in  living  sympathy  with  men.  It  comes 
only  in  its  fulness  with  the  process  of  years, 
and  with  deepening  heart-experiences  of  our 
own.  It  requires  a  large  and  varied  knowl- 
edge of  men,  their  motives,  their  sorrows, 
their  temptations.  The  man  who  can  do  this 
well  must  be  both  loving  and  wise  —  loving 
with  the  love  of  Christ,  wise  with  the  wisdom 
of  God. 

There  is  also  another  side  to  Greatheart's 
work:  while  he  is  to  be  the  spiritual  guide^ 
he  is  also  to  be  the  spiritual  warrior^  fighting 
with  weapons  of  proof  the  battles  of  the  Lord. 
The  Episcopal  Church,  established  by  law  in 
England,  makes  it  its  boast  that,  sending  forth 
its  clergy,  it  places  "a  gentleman  in  every 
parish."  That  may  be  a  good  thing  or  it  may 
not.  Everything  depends  upon  who  and 
what-like  the  gentleman  is.  On  the  whole 
it  may  be  safer  for  our  churches  to  try  to  place 
in  every  community  a  true  man^  who,  as  op- 
portunity offers,  shall  show  himself  on  the 
side  of  the  oppressed,  and  speak  up  for  every 
righteous  cause.  Every  here  and  there  on 
the  road  to  the  Celestial  City  there  are  power- 
ful enemies  lying  in  wait ;  it  is  well,  therefore, 
that  there  should  be  on  the  road  also  a  man 
with  manhood  enough  in  him  to  challenge 


142      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

them,  to  confront  them  with  some  hope  of 
victory,  to  proclaim  the  divine  authority  of 
right  over  wrong. 

If  you  have  followed  me  thus  far;  have 
taken  into  your  mental  vision  that  picture 
;  hanging  upon  the  wall  in  the  Interpreter's 
(    House;    and   have   placed   alongside   it   the 
!  characters  of  Evangelist,  Watchful  and  Great- 
,  heart,  you  will  have  nearly  realized  to  your- 
^  selves    Bunyan's    conception    of    the    ideal 
Christian   minister,  —  nearly  but   not  quite. 
One  other  scene  from  the  Pilgrim  story  is 
still  needed  to  complete  the  whole.     When 
Christian  and  Hopeful  arrived  at  the  Delect- 
able  Mountains,    where   were    gardens    and 
orchards,  vineyards  and  fountains  of  water, 
they   found    there    Shepherds   feeding   their 
flocks.     The  Pilgrims,  going  to  them  "  and 
leaning  upon  their  staves  (as  is  common  with 
weary  Pilgrims,  when  they  stand  to  talk  with 
any   by  the   way),"    asked   what   mountains 
these  were  and  whose  were  the  sheep  that 
fed  upon  them.     In  reply  the  Shepherds  told 
them  that  these  mountains  are  Emmanuel's 
Land,    within   sight   of    the    City,    that   the 
sheep  feeding  on  them  are  His,  and  that  He 
laid  down   his  life  for  them.     Further,  the 
Shepherds  said  that  the  Lord  of  these  moun- 


JOHN  BUN Y AN  143 

tains  had  given  them  a  charge,  not  to  be  for- 
getful to  entertain  strangers :  therefore  the 
good  of  the  place  was  before  them.  The 
names  of  these  Shepherds  were  Knowledge^ 
Experience,  WatcJifid,  and  Sincere.  This  is  a 
pastoral  scene,  quiet  and  restful,  the  meaning 
of  which  it  is  not  easy  to  miss.  These  Shep- 
herds are  pastors  of  the  flock  of  Christ,  and 
their  four  names  denote  four  qualities,  all  of 
which  should  be  found  in  every  good  minis- 
ter of  Jesus  Christ.  And,  whereas  the  other 
names  we  have  had  before  us  —  Evangelist, 
Watchful,  Greatheart,  set  forth  the  outward 
activities  of  the  minister's  life,  these  names. 
Knowledge,  Experience,  Watchful,  and  Sin- 
cere, describe  the  inward  qualities  and  spiri- 
tual equipments  of  the  man  divinely  called 
to  feed  the  flock  of  God. 

He  is  to  have  Knowledge,  the  learning,  the 
intelligence  obviously  required  to  feed  the 
people  of  God  with  knowledge  and  under- 
standing. He  is  to  have  a  mind  ever  alert 
to  see  and  learn,  especially  the  best  things, 
intermeddling  with  all  wisdom,  especially  that 
which  relates  to  God  and  things  of  God. 
Then,  too,  he  must  acquire  Experience.  It  is 
dear-bought.  It  can  only  come  through  un- 
dergoing temptation,  trial,  heart-sorrow.    But 


144      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

it  is  worth  all  it  costs,  for  it  brightens  niany 
a  Scripture  otherwise  obscure,  sends  a  thrill 
through  many  a  prayer,  and  wings  many  an 
arrow  to  the  conscience.  He  is  also  to  be 
Watchful.  He  who  bore  that  name  as  porter 
of  the  Palace  Beautiful  was  to  watch  over 
the  Church  and  its  arrangements  without ; 
this  man  of  the  same  name  is  to  keep  guard 
over  heart  and  life  within.  He  is  to  watch 
over  his  own  soul,  and  also  to  watch  for  the 
souls  of  his  people  —  to  watch  as  they  that 
must  give  account.  Finally  he  must  be  Sincere. 
Simplicity  and  purity  of  intention  in  him  will 
soon  be  felt  by  his  people  and  will  give  him 
wonderful  power  over  their  hearts.  They 
will  let  him  say  anything  to  them  when  once 
they  are  sure  that  he  is  real  and  that  he  loves 
them.  "  In  holiness  and  sincerity  of  God," 
says  the  Apostle,  "  we  behaved  ourselves  in 
the  world,  and  more  abundantly  to  you- 
ward "  —  no  unreal  words  on  the  lips  in 
daily  converse ;  no  false  fire  on  the  altar  in 
prayer  and  sermon,  no  affectation  of  a  sym- 
pathy the  heart  does  not  feel ! 

And  now,  having  thus  given  you,  from  Bun- 
j^an's  Dream,  Bunyan's  ideal  of  the  minister 
of  Christ,  let  us  turn  to  see  how  he  tried  to 
realize  that  ideal  in  bis  own  life  and  ministry. 


JOHN  BUN  TAN  145 

First,  let  us  see  liow  he  tried  to  realize  it 
in  his  preaching.  As  to  literary  form  Bunyan's 
sermons  naturally  took  much  of  their  character 
from  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  But  while 
these  were  arranged  after  a  seventeenth- 
century  manner  there  was  that  about  them 
which  was  peculiarly  his  own.  To  begin 
with,  he  was  a  master  of  grand  and  noble 
Saxon  speech.  It  came  to  him  as  naturally 
as  song  to  a  bird.  And  it  was  not  meant 
for  mere  rhetorical  display.  He  meant  to 
do  something  with  his  sermons  when  he 
had  made  them.  He  was  bent  on  seeing 
spiritual  realities  for  himself  and  on  making 
other  people  see  them.  He  would  take 
nothing  at  second-hand.  Lithographed  ser 
mons,  such  as  so  many  of  the  English  clergy 
buy  at  so  much  a  dozen,  would  not  have 
been  in  his  way.  Says  he :  "  I  never  en- 
deavored to,  nor  durst  make  use  of  other 
men's  lines  (though  I  condemn  not  all  that 
do),  for  I  verily  thought  and  found  by  ex- 
perience that  what  was  taught  me  by  the 
Word  and  Spirit  of  Christ  could  be  spoken, 
maintained  and  stood  to  by  the  soundest  and 
best  established  conscience."  He  sought, 
as  we  all  should,  to  stand  on  reality  in 
everything.      To   Him   both   sin   and   salva- 

10 


146      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

tion  were  as  real  as  the  very  earth  on 
which  He  trod. )  As  He  spoke  of  sin  He 
spoke  of  it  with  a  shudder  such  as  that 
with  which  men  speak  of  a  danger  from 
which  they  have  barely  escaped  with  their 
lives.  This  part  of  my  work,"  he  says, 
"  I  fulfilled  with  great  sense  ;  for  the  terrors 
of  the  Law  and  guilt  for  my  transgression 
lay  heavy  on  my  conscience,  I  preached 
what  I  felt,  what  I  smartingly  did  feel, 
even  that  under  which  my  poor  soul  did 
groan  and  tremble  to  astonishment.  Indeed 
I  have  been  as  one  sent  unto  them  from 
the  dead.  I  went  myself  in  chains  to  preach 
to  them  in  chains  ;  and  carried  that  Fire  in 
my  own  conscience  that  I  persuaded  them 
to  beware  of."  So  also,  when  he  passed 
from  conflict  to  the  calm  of  soul  which 
forgiveness  brings,  he  was  just  as  real. 
"  When  the  Lord  came  upon  my  soul  with 
some  staid  peace  and  comfort  through  Christ, 
then  too  I  still  preached  what  I  saw  and  felt." 
In  this  intense  directness  and  reality  lay  the 
secret  of  this  man's  power.  He  found  his 
way  to  other  men's  hearts  because  he  spoke 
so  truly  out  of  his  own.  He  not  only  told 
the  truth,  but  he  made  the  truth  to  tell. 
Said   a   preacher   who   knew   how   to   do   it 


JOHN  BUNYAN  147 

himself,  there  must  be  that  in  our  sermons 
which  will  both  strike  and  stick.  A  man 
.  may  part  with  truth  and  not  communicate 
it.  An  important  part  of  communication 
is  reception,  and  that  may  not  have  taken 
place.  An  arrow  all  wing  but  no  point  is 
worthless.  Augustine  was  determined  to 
get  right  into  the  minds  of  the  people  to 
whom  he  spoke.  "  I  would  rather,"  said 
he,  "  that  the  grammarians  should  criticise 
me  than  that  my  people  should  not  under- 
stand me."  An  important  rule  to  bear  in 
mind  is  that  you  must  keep  touch  with  your 
audience  and  carry  them  along  with  you. 
Said  Alexander  VIII.  to  Cardinal  Polignac, 
"  You  always  commence  by  agreeing  with 
me,  and  you  finish  by  making  me  agree  with 
you."  There  is  nothing  so  unreal  as  to  see 
a  man  speaking  hefore  his  hearers  but  not  to 
them.  Some  men  get  into  an  unreal  pro- 
fessional way  of  speaking  in  public.  In 
private  converse  they  are  very  sensible  men 
and  worth  listening  to,  but  directly  they  get 
on  to  their  feet  their  common  sense  seems  to 
have  left  them.  Said  a  Frenchman  of  his 
priest,  "  When  M.  le  Cur^  gives  advice  he 
does  it  admirably,  but  when  he  wishes  to 
make  a  sermon   he   is  unbearable."     "  Now 


148      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

doctor,"  said  a  shrewd-witted  patient,  "  don't 
be  professional  but  tell  me  the  truth,"  Arch- 
bishop Magee  used  to  say  that  all  preachers 
may  be  divided  into  three  classes  —  preachers 
you  cannot  listen  to,  preachers  you  can  listen 
'to  and  preachers  you  cannot  help  listening 
to.  Judging  from  his  writings  and  from 
what  his  contemporaries  have  told  us  of  him, 
Bunyan  belonged  to  that  class  of  preachers 
men  cannot  help  listening  to.  His  reading 
and    thinking,    his    experience    of    life    and 

knowledge     of     men,     his    Dba.er.vaJtion of 

charactei'  in  the  forming  and  of  motive 
in  the  working  —  all  were  made  to  bear  on 
the  g-reat  work  on  which  his  heart  was  set 
and  to  which  his  life  was  consecrated.  A 
ministry  having  such  elements  of  power  and 
reality  will  be  successful  in  tliis  century  as 
well  as  in  the  seventeenth ;  while  mere  made- 
up  men,  pieces  of  artificiality  and  officialism, 
preachers  who  say  things  merely  because  they 
are  expected  to  say  them,  will  be  successful 
in  none  of  the  centuries  and  if  the  truth 
must  be  told  they  do  not  deserve  to  be. 

Siniplicitj  and  directness  of  speech  are 
great  qualities  in  a  preacher.  It  does  not  re- 
quire much  genius,  so  to  speak,  as  that  no  man 
can  for  the   life  of  him  make  out  what  you 


JOHN  BUN  TAN  149 

are  driving  at.  It  is  a  mark  of  real  power 
when  3'oii  can  so  put  a  thing  as  that  one  man 
shall  wonder  that  he  never  saw  the  subject  in 
that  light  before,  and  to  another  it  shall  seem 
so  simple  and  obvious  that  he  falls  into  the 
natural  mistake  of  supposing  that  he  could 
have  preached  that  sermon  himself.  It  is  a 
difficult  problem,  no  doubt,  and  one  that 
every  preacher  has  had  to  face,  how  to  speak 
to  a  miscellaneous  audience  so  as  to  secure 
the  interest  of  widely  different  orders  of 
mind.  There  can  be  no  better  aim  for  a 
preacher  than  to  try  so  to  present  the  truth  of 
God  that  the  common  people  shall  hear  him 
gladl}',  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  intelli- 
gent members  of  his  congregation  shall  feel 
that  their  understandings  have  been  respected 
and  their  interest  secured.  "  Think  with  the 
wise,"  said  Aristotle,  "but  speak  with  the 
common  people." 

On  the  matter  of  literary  form  we  may  note 
that  Bunyan  seems  carefully  to  have  avoided 
one  sin  not  easily  forgiven  —  the  cardinal  sin 
of  dulness.  Neither  in  his  character  sketches 
nor  in  his  illustrations  does  he  ever  grow 
tedious.  The  various  people  in  his  allegories 
step  out  into  the  open  —  they  interest  you  or 
they  amuse  you,  or  they  instruct  you ;  there 


150      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

is  one  thing  they  never  do,  they  never  weary 
you.  They  do  all  they  were  meant  to  do 
and  then  they  disappear.  Yet  in  that  brief 
space  they  have  left  a  distinct  imjjression  of 
their  own  individuality  upon  you.  Many  of 
the  illustrations  in  his  sermons,  too,  are  simply 
exquisite.  Take  for  example  this  of  Christian 
fellowship :  "  Christians  are  like  the  several 
flowers  in  a  garden  that  have  upon  each  of 
them  the  dew  of  heaven,  which  being  shaken 
with  the  wind,  they  let  fall  their  dew  at  each 
other's  roots,  whereby  they  are  jointly  nour- 
ished and  become  nourishers  of  each  other." 
That  is  an  illustration  which  is  a  word-picture, 
a  poem  in  prose.  The  most  refined  feel  the 
charm  of  it,  and  the  plainest  man  is  conscious 
of  its  beauty  and  force.  Moreover  it  is  an 
illustration  which  is  not  dragged  in  for  its 
own  sake.  It  really  does  illustrate,  that  is,  it 
throws  light  on  the  subject  in  hand.  More- 
over it  is  not  overdone.  It  leaves  off  at  the 
precise  point  at  which  it  ought  to  stop.  It  is 
well  sometimes  to  have  the  moral  courage  to 
leave  out  something.  The  leaving  out  may 
really  increase  the  value  of  that  which  remains 
in.  There  are  times  when  the  half  turns  out 
to  be  more  than  the  whole. 

Then,  again,  in  realizing  his  own  ideal  as  a 


dk, 


JOHN  BUNYAN  ^  151 

preacher,  Bunyan  tells  us  that  he  intentionally 
laid  the  chief  stress  on  universal  and  central 
truths.  One  of  the  first  things  that  strikes  us 
about  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  its  universality. 
Dean  Stanley  said  of  it  that  "  it  is  one  of  the 
few  books  which  act  as  a  religious  bond  to 
the  whole  of  Christendom  ;  that  it  is,  perhaps 
with  six  others,  and  equally  with  any  of  those 
six,  the  book  which,  after  the  English  Bible, 
has  contributed  to  the  common  religious  cul- 
ture of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race."  The  forms 
which  rise  before  us  are  essentially  represen- 
tative in  their  character.  While  drawn  from 
the  ordinary  middle-class  burghers  of  an  ordi- 
nary Midland  town  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
men  of  all  nationalities  consent  to  recognize 
them  as  fellow-citizens  and  contemporaries. 
Not  only  were  they  living  in  Bunyan 's  time, 
they  are  living  still.  Only  a  little  time  ago  I 
travelled  myself  with  that  brisk  young  man 
Ignorance  from  the  country  of  Conceit.  Pli- 
able is  to  be  found  in  many  a  congregation. 
Talkative  does  not  confine  himself  to  any  one 
of  the  Christian  denominations.  Mr.  Facing- 
both-ways  found  his  way  into  the  British 
Parliament  at  the  very  last  election ;  and  for 
anything  I  know  he  may  also  be  met  with 
in  Senate  and  Congress,  even  in  the  United 


152      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

States.  Mr.  By-ends  lias  not  ceased  to  be  a 
prominent  figure  in  certain  religious  circles. 
He  is  still  true  to  his  old  principle,  which  is 
never  to  go  against  wind  and  tide ;  he  still 
likes  Religion  best  when  she  goes  in  the  sun- 
shine and  walks  in  silver  slippers  ;  and  his 
grandfather  the  waterman  still  gets  his  living 
by  looking  one  way  and  rowing  another. 
And  if  such  men  as  these  are  with  us  still,  so 
also  are  others  of  widely  different  sort. 
Christian,  still  faring  forward,  through  storm 
and  sunshine,  to  the  city  of  God ;  Faithful 
still  staunch  and  true  even  in  Vanity  Fair ; 
Hopeful  with  his  word  of  sympathy  and  cheer 
even  in  the  dungeons  of  Doubting  Castle ; 
Standfast,  still  winning  victories  upon  his 
knees;  Mr.  Fearing,  timid,  trembling  soul, 
not  afraid  of  the  lions,  but  only  afraid  of  his 
acceptance  at  last ;  Old  Honest,  too,  sturdy  as 
an  oak,  and  true  as  steel  —  we  know  them 
all,  for  they  are  all  with  us,  and  all  represent 
types  of  character  which  are  permanent  and 
world-wide. 

And  as  with  the  characters  Bunyan  de- 
picted so  with  the  truths  he  most  of  all  de- 
lighted to  preach  —  they  were  permanent  and 
universal  also.  He  aimed  mainly,  he  tells  us, 
at  that  which  was  central  and  vital.     "  I  did 


JOHN  BUNYAN  153 

labor  with  great  diligence  and  earnestness," 
he  says,  "  to  find  out  such  a  word  as  might, 
if  God  w^ould  bless,  lay  hold  of  and  awaken 
the  conscience."  Elsewhere  also  he  says : 
"I  never  cared  to  meddle  with  things  that 
were  controverted,  and  in  dispute  among  the 
saints,  especially  things  of  the  lowest  nature ; 
yet  it  pleased  me  much  to  contend  with  great 
earnestness  for  the  Word  of  Faith  and  the 
remission  of  sins  by  the  Death  and  Sufferings 
of  Jesus ;  but  I  say  as  to  other  things  I 
should  let  them  alone,  because  I  saw  they 
engendered  strife,  and  because  that  they, 
neither  in  doing  nor  in  leaving  undone,  did 
commend  us  to  God  to  be  His."  Take  this 
again :  "  It  pleased  me  nothing  to  see  people 
drink  in  opinions  if  they  seemed  ignorant  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  the  worth  of  their  own  sal- 
vation, sound  conviction  for  sin,  especially 
for  unbelief,  and  a  heart  set  on  fire  to  be 
saved  by  Christ,  with  strong  breathings  after 
a  truly  sanctified  soul.  That  it  was  that  de- 
lighted me ;  those  were  the  souls  I  counted 
blessed."  There  is  much  of  wisdom  in  all 
this,  in  keeping  truth  in  true  perspective, 
and  in  giving  their  due  prominence  to  the 
mountain  heights  of  Scripture  and  of  human 
life. 


154      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

Further,  while  Bunyan  aimed  at  central 
things  in  his  teaching,  he  spoke  of  them  with 
an  honest  ring  of  clear  conviction.  No 
preacher  of  doubts  was  he,  but  of  divine 
certainties.  In  his  view  a  man  who  has  no 
convictions  of  his  own,  no  living  grasp  of 
God's  truth,  was  an  impertinence  in  the  pulpit 
and  something  worse.  "  I  have  been  in  my 
preaching,"  says  he,  "  especially  when  en- 
gaged in  the  doctrine  of  life  by  Christ,  as  if 
an  angel  of  God  had  stood  at  my  back  to  en- 
courage me.  Oh,  it  hath  been  with  such 
power  and  heavenly  evidence  upon  my  own 
soul,  while  I  have  been  laboring  to  unfold  it, 
to  demonstrate  it,  and  to  fasten  it  upon  the 
conscience  of  others,  that  I  could  not  be  con- 
tented with  saying  /  believe  and  am  sure; 
raethought  I  was  m-ore  than  sure  (if  it  be  law- 
ful so  to  express  myself)  that  those  things 
which  I  then  asserted  were  true."  Now 
herein  lay  part  of  the  secret  of  this  man's 
power  as  a  preacher.  Let  me  not  be  misun- 
derstood. There  is  a  vain-confidence  of  ig- 
norance as  well  as  an  assured  conviction  of 
faith,  and  we  must  not  mistake  the  one  for 
the  other.  But  there  is  another  side  to  the 
question.  There  is  great  outcry  now  and 
again  against  dogmatism  by  some  very  dog- 


JOHN  BUNYAN  155 

matic  people,  and  there  are  cases,  no  doubt, 
where  a  man  may  be  too  sure,  but  on  great 
questions,  and  in  the  ministry  of  the  Gospel 
some  men  fail  beeause  they  are  not  sure 
enough.  There  are,  of  course,  some  moot 
questions  on  which  an  honest  man  may  think 
it  best  to  keep  an  open  mind ;  such  questions, 
for  example,  as  those  which  relate  to  the 
literary  structure,  date  or  authorship  of  cer- 
tain books  of  Scripture.  All  that  we  want  to 
get  at  in  these  matters  is  the  truth,  whether 
it  squares  with  our  preconceived  opinions  or 
not.  For  in  the  long  run  the  truth  will  al- 
ways turn  out  to  be  our  best  friend  and  truest 
helper.  But  on  central  verities  —  on  God  and 
Christ  and  the  Divine  Spirit,  on  sin  and  sal- 
vation, on  the  formation  of  character  and  the 
shaping  of  destiny  —  on  these  let  there  be  no 
faltering  speech  or  lisp  of  hesitancy.  "  In 
my  preaching,"  says  Bunyan,  "  I  have  really 
been  in  pain,  and  have,  as  it  were,  travailed 
to  bring  forth  children  unto  God ;  neither 
could  I  be  satisfied  unless  some  fruit  did 
appear  in  my  work.  If  I  were  fruitless  it 
mattered  not  who  commended  me ;  but  if  I 
were  fruitful  I  cared  not  who  did  condemn." 
If  I  have  not  already  trespassed  too  far  on 
your  patience  I  should  like  to  say  a  word  or 


156      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

two  as  to  the  way  in  which  Bunyan  seems  to 
have  realized  the  ideal  minister,  not  only  in 
his  preaching,  but  also  in  the  spirit  of  his 
life.  I  need  not  remind  you  how  bravely 
and  with  what  unshrinking  fortitude  he  held 
on  his  way  in  spite  of  the  storms  and  sorrows 
of  life.  Long  weary  years  in  gaol  did  not 
break  his  spirit  or  embitter  his  heart,  "  I 
have  determined,"  said  he,  "  the  Almighty 
God  being  my  help  and  shield,  yet  to  suffer, 
if  frail  life  might  continue  so  long,  even  till 
the  moss  shall  grow  on  mine  eyebrows  rather 
than  to  violate  my  faith  and  principles."  In 
those  days  of  persecution  our  fathers  passed 
through  stern  discipline.  Our  sorrows  are 
light  indeed  by  the  side  of  theirs.  He  had 
also  troubles  which  every  true  minister  of 
Christ  has  to  share  with  him.  He  had  heart- 
sorrows,  as  we  have,  too,  over  some  who  ran 
well  once  but  were  hindered.  "  If,"  said  he, 
"  any  of  those  who  were  awakened  by  my 
ministry  did  after  that  fall  back,  as  some- 
times too  many  did,  I  can  truly  say  their  loss 
hath  been  more  to  me  than  if  my  own  chil- 
dren, begotten  of  my  own  body,  had  been 
going  to  their  graves.  I  think,  verily,  I  may 
speak  it  without  any  offence  to  the  Lord, 
nothing   has   gone   so   near   to   me    as  that, 


JOHN  BUNYAN  157 

unless  it  was  the  fear  of  the  loss  of  the  sal- 
vation of  my  own  soul." 

Besides  this  sorrow,  of  which  every  min- 
ister knows  something,  he  had  experience  of 
others  also.  He  was  bitterly  assailed  by  evil 
men.  The  ignorant  and  malicious  loaded 
him  with  slanders  and  reproaches.  "  What 
shall  I  say  to  those  who  have  thus  bespattered 
me  ?  "  asks  he.  "  Shall  I  threaten  them  ? 
Shall  I  chide  them  ?  Shall  I  flatter  them  ? 
Shall  I  entreat  them  to  hold  their  tongues  ? 
No,  not  I!  I  bind  these  things  to  me  as  an 
ornament ;  it  belongs  to  my  Christian  pro- 
fession to  be  vilified,  slandered,  reproached, 
and  reviled.  Wanting  these  I  should  want 
one  sign  of  a  Christian  and  child  of  God. 
I  rejoice  in  reproaches  for  Christ's  sake." 

Judging,  then,  from  other  men's  experience 
you  are  not  to  be  surprised  if  in  coming  days 
you  now  and  then  meet  with  trouble  and 
trying  discipline  in  the  exercise  of  your  min- 
istry. Indeed  I  know  no  walk  of  life  where 
a  man  may  altogether  expect  to  escape,  and 
I  know  no  man  who  would  be  the  better 
for  it  even  if  he  could  escape.  We  have  to 
go  through  the  deeps,  both  for  our  own  sake 
and  for  the  sake  of  others.  We  are  to  "com- 
fort  them  that   are  in  affliction  through  the 


158      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

comfort  wherewith  we  ourselves  are  comforted 
of  God."  But  I  am  not  going  to  dwell  too 
much  on  the  shadows  in  the  picture.  For 
there  is  another  and  a  brighter  side.  I  believe 
that  a  man  who  has  even  moderate  capacity 
for  the  work  of  the  ministry,  a  love  for  his 
work  and  real  Christlike  sympathy  with  men, 
will  in  time  gather  about  himself  so  much 
kind  feeling  from  those  he  has  helped,  and 
who  love  him  for  his  work's  sake,  that  there 
may  even  be  danger  the  other  way.  He  may 
need  to  be  saved  from  the  enervating  influ- 
ence of  too  much  kindness.  Fortunately,  if 
this  should  be  your  case,  you  may  rely  upon  it 
that  the  Lord,  in  His  mercy,  will  raise  up  some 
good  brother  in  the  church  Avho  will  make  it 
his  business  to  see  to  it  that  you  are  not 
exalted  above  measure.  My  advice  is  that 
you  should  look  upon  that  brother  as  one  of 
your  best  friends.  He  has  one  talent  at 
least,  and  though  you  may  have  preferred 
that  he  should  have  wrapped  that  one  talent 
in  a  napkin  and  buried  it  in  the  earth,  you 
may  yet  find  that  it  has  valuable  uses. 

In  future  years,  then,  you  may  have  your 
trials  and  sorrows,  no  man  is  entirely  with- 
out, but  do  not  think  too  much  of  them ;  do 
not  be  always  trying  to  run  away  from  them 


JOHN  BUNYAN  159 

to  some  other  church  —  some  church  not  yet 
created  —  where  all  is  unbroken  and  un- 
clouded peace.  If  you  have  your  sorrows 
you  will  also  have  your  joys  :  you  will  have 
meat  to  eat  that  the  world  knows  not  of. 
And  the  joys  you  will  find  to  be  most  precious 
are  not  those  which  can  be  set  forth  in  the 
religious  journals  of  the  day,  but  those  you 
take  to  your  secret  place  of  communion,  and 
spread  before  the  Lord  with  a  thankfulness 
too  deep  for  words.  If  there  are  those  you 
have  helped  to  see  the  light  of  God,  to  bear 
their  life-burdens,  to  go  forward  under  hard 
conditions  with  new  courage  and  hope  —  if 
there  are  those  whom  God  has  given  you  to 
be  your  children  in  the  faith  and  whom  you 
have  the  honor  of  building  up  to  a  noble 
Christian  manhood,  you  will  care  very  little 
for  the  troubles  of  the  way.  "  I  have,"  says 
Bunyan,  "counted  as  if  I  had  goodly  build- 
ings and  lordships  in  those  places  where  my 
children  were  born;  my  heart  hath  been  so 
wrapped  up  in  the  glory  of  this  excellent 
work  that  I  counted  myself  more  blessed  and 
honored  of  God  by  this  than  if  He  had 
made  me  the  Emperor  of  the  Christian  world, 
or  the  Lord  of  all  the  glory  of  the  earth  with- 
out it." 


160      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

Bunyan's  experience  is  interesting  to  us  in 
another  way,  inasmuch  as  with  all  his  genius 
he  knew  as  much  as  most  of  us  of  those  ups 
and  downs,  those  exaltations  and  reactions  of 
feeling  of  which  every  preacher,  indeed  every 
public  speaker,  knows  the  meaning.  He  had 
his  temptations,  he  says,  and  that  of  divers 
kinds.  Sometimes  when  he  was  on  his  way 
to  preach  he  was  haunted  by  a  fear  that  he 
should  not  be  able  to  speak  to  edification, 
nay  that  he  should  not  be  able  even  to  speak 
sense  to  the  people ;  at  which  times  he 
would  be  seized  with  such  strange  faintness 
and  strengthlessness  of  body  that  his  legs 
would  scarce  carry  him  to  the  place  of  exer- 
cise. Sometimes,  again,  when  he  had  begun 
to  speak  the  word  with  much  clearness,  evi- 
dence and  liberty  of  speech,  before  the  oppor- 
tunity was  over  he  has  become  so  straitened 
in  speech  and  bewildered  that  he  has  not 
known  what  he  has  been  about;  or  to  use 
his  own  expression,  he  has  felt  as  if  his 
"head  had  been  in  a  bag  all  the  time  of 
the  exercise."  Let  this  be  your  comfort  if 
such  experiences  should  ever  be  yours,  and 
remember  that  the  people  have  not  always 
seen  the  sermon  as  you  have  yourself. 
Sometimes    when    you    thought    you    have 


I 


JOHN  BUN  YAK  161 

done  well  you  have  not  done  so  well  as 
you  thought.  On  the  other  hand  when 
you  have  felt  humbled  God  has  taken  your 
weakness  and  filled  it  with  his  strenefth. 
"Sometimes,"  says  Bunyan,  "when  I  thought 
I  did  no  good  then  I  did  most  of  all;  and 
at  other  times,  when  I  thought  I  should 
catch  them,  I  have  fished  for  nothing." 

Like  all  true  men,  this  man  in  his  work 
felt  he  was  nothing  and  God  was  everything. 
He  knew  his  own  heart  too  well  ever  to  be 
proud  or  vainglorious.  "  I  have  also,"  he 
says,  "  while  found  in  this  blessed  work  of 
Christ,  been  often  tempted  to  pride  and  lift- 
ings up  of  heart ;  and  though  I  dare  not  say 
I  have  not  been  infected  with  this,  yet  truly 
the  Lord  of  His  precious  mercy,  hath  so  car- 
ried it  towards  me,  that  for  the  most  part 
I  have  had  but  small  joy  to  give  way  to  such 
a  thing.  For  it  hath  been  my  every  day's 
portion  to  be  let  into  the  evil  of  my  own 
heart,  and  still  made  to  see  such  a  multitude 
of  corruptions  and  infirmities  therein  that  it 
hath  caused  hauCTins:  down  of  the  head  under 
ril  my  gifts  and  attainments.  I  have  felt 
this  thorn  in  the  flesh  the  very  mercy  of  God 
to  me." 

Thus  this  divinely-gifted  and  heaven-illu- 
11 


L 


162      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

mined  soul  was  taught  the  great  secret  of 
spiritual  strength;  found  out  that  the  way 
to  the  heights  is  ever  through  the  depths : 
that  when  we  are  weak  then  are  we  strong ; 
and  so  with  an  ever-increasing  sense  of  his 
own  insufficiency  came  to  feel  more  and 
more  that  his  sufficiency  was  of  God.  Such 
pastors  the  churches  need  in  every  genera- 
tion.    From  age  to  age  they  seem  to  say: 

"  We  want  our  Bunyan  to  show  the  way 
Through  the  Sloughs  of  Despond  that  are  round  us 

to-day, 
Our  guide  for  straggling  souls  to  wait, 
And  lift  the  latch  of  the  wicket-gate. 
We  fain  would  listen,  O  Preacher  and  Peer, 
To  a  voice  like  that  of  this  Tinker-Seer, 
Who  guided  the  Pilgrim  up,  beyond 
The  Valley  of  Death  and  the  Slough  of  Despond, 
And  Doubting  Castle  and  Giant  Despair, 
To  those  Delectable  Mountains  fair, 
And  over  the  River,  and  in  at  the  Gate 
Where  for  weary  Pilgrims  the  Angels  wait." 


VI 


RICHARD   BAXTER,   THE   KIDDER- 
MINSTER PASTOR 


LECTURE   VI 

EICHARD  BAXTER,   THE    KIDDER- 
MINSTER PASTOR 

IN  recent  utterances  of  mine  your  attention 
has  been  called  to  certain  English 
preachers  of  the  seventeenth  century  who 
were,  in  an  especial  sense,  characteristic  of 
the  time  and  notable  in  themselves.  I  should 
like,  still,  to  detain  you  in  that  century  a 
little  while  longer  that  we  may  receive 
further  instruction  and  stimulus  from  the 
life-story  of  a  distinguished  preacher  and  the 
record  of  a  memorable  ministry  which  you 
will  recognize  as  falling  within  the  century  I 
have  named. 

If  I  were  asked  what,  in  the  year  1646, 
was  one  of  the  most  unpromising  towns  in 
England  to  which  a  young  man  could  be 
sent,  who  was  starting  his  career  as  preacher 
and  pastor,  I  should  feel  inclined  to  point  at 
once  to  the  town  of  Kidderminster  in  Wor- 
cestershire. With  a  population  at  that  time 
of  between  three  and  four  thousand,  mainly 


■) 


166      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

carpet- weavers,  it  had  been,  morally  and 
spiritually,  so  grossly  neglected  as  almost 
to  have  sunk  into  practical  heathenism. 
Few,  indeed,  were  those  in  whose  hearts 
any  seeds  of  godliness  had  taken  root.  The 
majority  of  the  people  were  ignorant  beyond 
the  ignorance  of  the  time,  debased  beyond  its 
defilement,  disorderly  beyond  its  rudeness. 
It  was  an  illustration  of  the  old  adage  —  like 
priest  like  people.  For  the  vicar  of  the 
town  had  been  proceeded  against  before  the 
Committee  for  Scandalous  Ministers  as  being 
in  character  and  attainments  utterly  unfit  for 
his  position.  Ignorant  of  the  very  elements 
of  Christianity,  he  preached  but  once  a 
quarter,  and  that  in  so  feeble  a  fashion  as  to 
expose  him  alike  to  the  ridicule  and  the  pity 
of  the  people  who  listened  to  him.  It  was 
also  alleged  against  him  that  he  was  a  fre- 
quenter of  ale-houses,  and  had  sometimes 
been  seen  drunk.  Such  was  the  vicar,  and 
his  curates  were  like  himself.  One  of  these 
was  in  the  town,  and,  in  common  with  his 
vicar,  was  accused  before  the  Committee; 
the  other  had  charge  of  a  subordinate  chapel 
in  a  distant  part  of  the  parish.  This  last 
was  described  as  a  common  tippler  and  drunk- 
ard, as  a  railing  quarreller,  and  an  ignorant 


RICHARD   BAXTER  167 

insufficient  man  who  had  scarcely  knowledge 
enough  to  understand  a  Child's  Catechism. 
Almost  the  only  book  he  had  was  Musculus's 
"Commonplaces  in  English,"  out  of  which 
he  used  to  string  a  few  platitudes  for  the 
people;  and  the  trade  by  which  he  chiefly 
lived  was  that  of  celebrating  unlawful  mar- 
riages. If  the  people  strayed  away  to  neigh- 
boring parishes  they  found  themselves  no 
better  off.  For  the  poor  ignorant  curate  of 
the  parish  on  the  one  side  got  his  living  by 
cutting  fagots,  and  the  curate  of  the  parish 
on  the  other  side  by  making  ropes  —  "  their 
abilities  being  answerable  to  their  studies 
and  employments."  This  was  the  condition 
in  which  scores  of  parishes  were  left  after  the 
best  preachers  had  been  driven  by  persecution 
either  into  Holland,  or  over  here  into  New 
England.  To  undertake  the  pastoral  care  of 
a  town  like  Kidderminster  after  such  teachers 
as  these  was  like  undertaking  to  cultivate 
a  farm  which  for  time  out  of  mind  had  been 
overrun  with  briars  and  thorns,  and  aban- 
doned to  thistles  and  weeds. 

Again,  if  I  were  asked,  who  of  all  men  — 
taking  merely  physical  reasons  into  account 
—  would  seem  to  be  the  most  unlikely  man 
to  be  sent  as  pastor  to  this  most  unlikely  and 


168      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

unpromising  place,  I  should  have  said  that 
man  was  Richard  Baxter.  Scarcely  ever 
has  a  man  who  has  done  any  work  at  all, 
done  it  under  circumstances  of  such  difficulty 
and  pain  as  this  man  did  his.  For  fourteen 
years  he  had  scarcely  a  working  hour  free 
from  pain.  He  was  engaged  in  one  long 
conflict  with  diseases  like  "  pleurisy,  nephritic 
and  cholic."  "I  had  at  several  times,"  he 
says,  "the  advice  of  no  less  than  six  and 
thirty  physicians,  by  whose  order  I  used 
drugs  without  number,  almost  all  of  which 
God  thought  not  fit  to  make  successful  for  a 
cure."  Twenty  several  times  he  was  near  to 
death;  again  and  again  he  was  brought  to 
the  very  gates  of  the  grave,  and  again  and 
again  he  returned  to  life  through  the  long 
and  wearisome  ascent  of  slow  and  difficult 
recovery.  If  Richard  Baxter  had  done  noth- 
insr  but  take  care  of  himself  as  an  invalid, 
no  one  would  have  had  the  heart  to  blame  a 
man  to  whom  life  was  thus  one  long  and 
weary  battle  with  disease  and  pain. 

And  yet  once  more:  If  I  were  asked  to 
single  out  one  English  town  of  the  seven- 
teenth  century  which  more  almost  than  any 
other  came  under  the  influence  of  the  Spirit 
of  God;   and  one  preacher  who,  more   than 


RICHARD  BAXTER  169 

most,  was  successful  in  winning  men  for 
Christ,  and  in  organizing  a  vigorous  church 
life  under  his  pastorate,  I  should  say  that 
town  was  Kidderminster  and  that  preacher 
was  Richard  Baxter.  A  quarter  of  a  century 
ago  that  town  did  honor  to  itself  by  erecting 
a  statue  to  that  preacher;  and  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  unveiling.  Dean  Stanley  said: 
"There  have  been  three  or  four  parishes  in 
England  which  have  been  raised  by  their 
pastors  to  a  national,  almost  a  world-wide, 
fame.  Of  these  the  most  conspicuous  is 
Kidderminster:  for  Baxter  without  Kidder- 
minster would  have  been  but  half  of  himself ; 
and  Kidderminster  without  Baxter  would 
have  had  nothing  but  its  carpets."  Let  us 
first  look  at  the  extent  of  the  work  this  man 
did,  and  then  at  his  methods  of  work. 

With  grateful  heart  he  tells  of  the  success 
God  gave  him  in  his  ministry.  And  though 
the  story  is  his  own,  we  may  safely  trust  him. 
There  is  an  unmistakably  honest  ring  about 
the  man.  "I  would  as  soon  doubt  the 
Gospel  verity,"  said  Coleridge,  "as  I  would 
doubt  Baxter's  veracity."  "Let  me,"  says 
he,  "to  the  praise  of  my  gracious  Lord, 
acquaint  you  with  some  of  my  success." 
He  will  not  suppress   the  story,  though   he 


170      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

knows  beforehand  that  some  will  impute  the 
mention  of  it  to  pride  and  ostentation,  for  it 
is  the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  which  he  owes 
to  his  most  gracious  God,  which  he  will  not 
deny  Him  for  fear  of  being  censured  as 
proud,  lest  he  prove  himself  proud  indeed. 

He  had  not  long  been  preaching  in  the 
town  before  the  large  and  capacioas  church 
became  so  full  that  gallery  after  gallery  had 
to  be  added  to  the  interior.  And  as  years 
went  by  the  preaching  in  the  church  told 
powerfully  upon  the  life  of  the  town.  Let 
him  tell  the  wonderful  story  himself:  "On 
the  Lord's  days  there  was  no  disorder  to  be 
seen  in  the  streets,  but  you  might  hear  a 
hundred  families  singing  j)salms  and  repeat- 
ing sermons,  as  you  passed  through  the 
streets.  In  a  word,  when  I  came  thither 
first  there  was  about  one  family  in  a  street 
that  worshipped  God  and  called  on  his  name ; 
and  when  I  came  away  there  were  some 
streets  where  there  was  not  past  one  family 
in  the  side  of  a  street  that  did  not  do  so;  and 
that  did  not  by  professing  serious  godliness 
give  us  hopes  of  their  sincerity."  The  teach- 
ing in  the  church  elevated  those  carpet- 
weavers  intellectually  as  well  as  religiously: 
"Some    of    the   poor  men   did  competently 


RICHARD  BAXTER  171 

understand  the  Body  of  Divinity,  and  were 
able  to  judge  in  difficult  controversies." 
But,  better  still,  they  became  gifted  spirit- 
ually: "Some. of  them  were  so  able  in  prayer 
that  very  few  ministers  did  match  them  in 
order  and  fulness,  and  apt  expressions  and 
holy  oratory  with  fervency."  And,  best  of 
all,  their  lives  were  even  better  than  their 
prayers :  "  The  temper  of  their  minds  and  the 
innocency  of  their  lives  was  much  more 
laudable  than  their  parts.  The  professors 
of  serious  godliness  were  generally  of  very 
humble  minds  and  carriage;  of  meek  and 
quiet  behavior  unto  others,  and  of  blameless- 
ness  and  innocency  in  their  conversations." 
The  sermons  of  the  minister  in  the  pulpit 
were  preached  over  again  by  the  people  in 
their  lives.  They  made  the  Gospel  beautiful 
by  showing  it  in  action.  Says  Baxter:  "  The 
holy,  humble,  blameless  lives  of  the  religious 
sort  was  a  great  advantage  to  me :  the  mali- 
cious sort  could  not  say  —  your  professors 
here  are  as  proud  and  covetous  as  any. 
But  the  blameless  lives  of  godly  people  did 
shame  opposers,  and  put  to  silence  the  igno- 
rance of  foolish  men,  and  many  were  won  by 
their  good  conversation."  Moreover,  this 
good  work  of  God  stood  the  test  of  time,  was 


172      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

no  mere  flash  in  the  pan.  When  the  Resto- 
ration brought  in  the  reign  of  persecution 
this  true  shepherd  of  men  was  driven  from 
the  people  he  loved  so  well,  and  who  loved 
liim ;  yet  long  afterwards  he  writes :  "  Though 
I  have  now  been  absent  from  them  about  six 
years,  and  they  have  been  assaulted  with 
pulpit  calumnies  and  slanders,  with  threaten- 
ings  and  imprisonments,  with  enticing  words 
and  seducing  reasonings,  they  yet  stand  fast 
and  keep  their  integrity.  Many  of  them  are 
gone  to  God,  and  some  are  removed,  and 
some  now  in  prison,  and  most  still  at  home ; 
but  not  one  that  I  hear  of  who  has  fallen  off 
or  forsaken  his  uprightness." 

Now  this  is  no  mere  ideal  picture  of  some 
"sweet  smiling"  Auburn,  with  pastoral  rela- 
tions depicted  after  the  fancy  of  the  poet, 
but  not  easily  to  be  met  with  in  real  life.  It 
is  a  simple  narrative  of  facts  as  they  took 
place,  not  in  some  abode  of  rustic  innocence, 
but  in  a  manufacturing  town  where  the 
weavers  were  often  as  busy  with  religious 
discussions  as  they  were  with  their  looms; 
where  working-men  have  usually  keen 
tongues,  and  are  not  over-sparing  in  their 
ci'iticisms  of  preachers  and  sermons  and 
churches.     What   is    there    to    explain   the 


RICHARD  BAXTER  173 

exceptional    success   of    this    Kidderminster 
pastor? 

That  success  certainly  did  not  depend 
upon  any  mere  adventitious  aids.  It  did  not 
lie  with  him  in  a  comely  presence,  for  he  was 
weak  and  gaunt  in  form.  He  had  no  per- 
sonal advantages  except  —  and  I  must  admit 
the  exceptions  I  am  about  to  name  are  not 
without  significance  —  except  that  he  had  an 
eye  which  caught  its  fire  from  the  ardor  of 
his  soul,  and  that  he  had  as  a  natural  gift  a 
familiar  moving  voice,  —  a  voice  which  a 
loving  heart  toned  into  the  music  of  pathetic 
entreaty.  A  great  analyst  of  the  art  of 
public  speaking  as  it  was  brought  to  perfec- 
tion in  Greece  said  that  a  speaker  must 
convince  his  hearers  at  the  very  outset :  first, 
that  he  has  their  interests  at  heart,  next, 
that  he  is  competent  to  interpret  these  inter- 
ests, and,  thirdly,  that  he  is  free  from  the 
taint  of  self-seeking.  It  is  scarcely  likely 
that  Richard  Baxter  gathered  the  precepts  of 
the  art  of  speaking  from  the  great  work  of 
Aristotle,  for  Greek  was  not  much  in  his 
way,  but  he  certainly  always  had  these  pur- 
poses before  him.  He  had  that  true  genius 
for  public  speaking,  that  most  effective  form 
of  eloquence  which  you  see  in  a  man  when, 


174      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

in  conversation  on  some  serious  subject,  he 
is  intent  on  convincing  his  neighbor  of  some 
important  truth,  or  persuading  him  to  some 
decisive  course  of  conduct.  Of  public  men 
in  recent  times  in  England,  so  far  as  I  have 
had  the  opportunity  of  hearing  them,  I 
should  say  that  John  Bright  had  this  true 
genius,  this  true  oratorical  instinct  in  the 
highest  degree.  The  most  cultured  and 
intellectually-gifted  men  were  conscious  of 
an  indescribable  pleasure  in  listening  to  him 
when  he  was  at  his  best,  and  the  most 
studious  and  shrewd  of  the  working  classes 
made  his  speeches  a  household  book.  It  is 
difficult  to  describe  the  style,  but  you  recog- 
nize it  at  once,  whether  it  is  addressed  to  the 
eye  or  the  ear.  It  is  characterized  by  that 
brief,  rapid,  familiar  and  natural  manner 
which  a  mind  in  earnest  ever  assumes.  It 
shrinks  instinctively  from  what  is  merely 
ornate  or  glittering.  It  is  jealous  of  piled- 
up  epithets,  aims  at  a  highly-idiomatic  and 
homely  diction,  has  a  love  of  brevity  and 
condensation,  and  keeps  itself  free  from  stiff 
stateliness  and  empty  formality. 

A  competent  witness  in  our  time  has  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  of  all  the  English 
preachers   of  the   past,  probably   those  who 


RICHARD  BAXTER  175 

have  been  most  strongly  marked  by  the 
peculiarities  of  the  true  genius  for  public 
speaking  are  Hugh  Latimer,  Robert  South 
and  Richard  Baxter.  Of  the  quality  of 
Hugh  Latimer  we  had  some  taste  in  a  former 
lecture.  But  South  seems  to  this  writer  to 
furnish,  in  point  of  style.,  the  truest  specimen 
of  the  most  effective  species  of  pulpit  elo- 
quence. Of  course  he  is  speaking  simply  of 
his  style,  offering  no  opinion  as  to  the  truth 
or  error  of  the  doctrines  he  taught,  and  no 
apology  for  his  unchristian  bitterness  and 
often  unseemly  wit.  He  merely  points  out 
that  his  robust  intellect,  his  shrewd  common 
sense,  his  vehement  feelings,  and  his  fancy, 
always  more  distinguished  by  force  than  by 
elegance,  admirably  qualified  him  to  be  a 
powerful  public  speaker.  There  is  a  sermon 
of  his  in  which  he  pours  scorn  on  the.  florid 
declamation,  the  mere  tinsel  rhetoric  which 
some  people  think  to  be  so  very  fine.  He 
mentions  no  names,  but  you  can  see  that  he 
is  speaking  for  the  especial  benefit  of  his 
illustrious  but  too  fanciful  and  too  ornate 
contemporary,  Jeremy  Taylor.  The  passage 
is  worth  quoting :  "  '  I  speak  the  words  of 
soberness,'  said  St.  Paul,  and  I  preach  the 
Gospel    not    '  with    the    enticing   words    of 


176      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

man's  wisdom.'  This  was  the  way  of  the 
Apostle's  discoursing  of  things  sacred.  Noth- 
ing here  'of  the  fringes  of  the  north  star;' 
nothing  'of  nature's  becoming  unnatural;' 
nothing  of  the  '  down  of  angels'  wings,  or 
the  beautiful  locks  of  cherubims ; '  no  starched 
similitudes  introduced  with  a  '  Thus  have  I 
seen  a  cloud  rolling  in  its  airy  mansion, '  and 
the  like.  No  —  these  were  sublimities  above 
the  rise  of  the  apostolic  spirit.  For  the 
Apostles,  poor  mortals,  were  content  to  take 
lower  steps,  and  to  tell  the  world  in  plain 
terms  that  he  who  believed  should  be  saved, 
and  that  he  who  believed  not  should  be 
damned.  And  this  was  the  dialect  which 
pierced  the  conscience  and  made  the  hearers 
cry  out.  Men  and  brethren,  what  shall  we 
do  ?  It  tickled  not  the  ear,  but  it  sunk  into 
the  heart,  and  when  men  came  from  such 
sermons  they  never  commended  the  preacher 
for  his  taking  voice  or  gesture ;  for  the  fine- 
ness of  such  a  simile  or  the  quaintness  of 
such  a  sentence;  but  they  spoke  like  men 
conquered  with  the  overpowering  force  and 
evidence  of  the  most  concerning  truths,  much 
in  the  words  of  the  two  disciples  going  to 
Emmaus :  '  Did  not  our  hqarts  burn  within 
us  while  He  opened  to  us  the    Scriptures.' 


RICHARD   BAXTER  177 

In  a  word,  the  Apostles'  preaching  was  there- 
fore mighty  and  successful,  because  plain, 
natural  and  familiar,  and  by  no  means  above 
the  capacity  of  their  hearers  •  nothing  being 
more  preposterous  than  for  those  who  were 
professedly  aiming  at  men's  hearts,  to  miss 
the  mark  by  shooting  over  their  heads." 

Passing  from  South  to  Baxter,  we  have  in 
both,  in  large  measure,  those  endowments 
essential  to  the  best  kind  of  popular  elo- 
quence. Baxter  has  the  same  combination 
of  vigorous  intellect  and  vehement  speech 
which  distinguished  South;  but  he  has  what\ 
South  had  not,  —  a  devotion  pure  and  ethe- 
real, a  benevolence  ardent  and  sincere.  Tlie 
vigorous,  direct  style  of  speech  was  inspired 
by  the  earnest  soul.  His  weak  health  seemed 
always  to  keep  him  within  sight  of  the 
things  eternal.  He  says:  "Doing  all  in 
bodily  weakness,  as  a  dying  man,  my  soul 
was  all  the  more  easily  brought  to  serious- 
ness, and  to  preach  as  a  dying  man  to  dying 
men;  for  drowsy  formality  and  customari- 
ness  doth  but  stupefy  the  hearers  and  rock 
them  asleep.  It  must  be  serious  preaching 
which  must  make  men  serious  in  hearing  and 
obeying  it."  The  same  earnestness  of  spirit 
is  manifest  in  an  appeal  he  makes  to  ministers 

12 


/ 


178      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

themselves.  "I  confess,"  he  says,  "that 
Necessity  should  be  the  great  disposer  of  a 
minister's  course  of  study  and  labor.  If  we 
were  sufficient  for  everything  we  might 
attempt  everything,  and  take  in  order  the 
whole  Encyclopaedia;  but  life  is  short,  and 
we  are  dull,  and  eternal  things  are  necessary, 
and  the  souls  that  depend  on  our  teaching 
are  precious.  I  confess,  necessity  hath  been 
the  conductor  of  my  studies  and  life.  It 
chooses  what  book  I  shall  read,  and  tells  me 
when  and  how  long.  It  chooseth  my  text, 
and  makes  my  sermon,  both  for  matter  and 
manner,  so  far  as  I  can  keep  out  my  own 
corruption.  Though  I  know  the  constant 
expectation  of  death  hath  been  a  great  cause 
of  this,  yet  I  know  no  reason  why  the  most 
healthy  man  should  not  make  sure  of  the 
most  necessary  things  first,  considering  the 
uncertainty  and  shortness  of  all  men's  lives." 
This  man's  power,  then,  and  the  secret  of 
his  success  lay  in  the  natural  human  way  he 
spoke  to  men,  and  the  divine  earnestness 
which  possessed  his  soul.  He  spoke  directly 
from  Christ  to  the  people.  Christianity  was 
to  him  no  mere  set  of  doctrines  to  be  received 
or  a  code  of  ethics  to  be  followed;  it  was 
the  power  of  an  endless  life.     Go  and  listen 


RICHARD  BAXTER  179 

to  him  in  that  crowded  church  in  Kidder- 
minster any  Sunday  you  like,  he  is  the  same 
man  with  the  same  theme.  No  one  suspects 
that  this  soldier  of  the  Cross  fights  uncertainly 
as  one  that  beats  the  air.  You  feel  that  his 
message  is  not  so  much  about  his  Master  as 
from  Him;  and  it  is  not  a  message  that 
might  do  for  any  audience  at  any  time,  but 
it  is  clearly  intended  for  the  living  men  and 
women  then  and  there  before  him.  The 
minutes  are  not  long  enough  for  all  he 
wants  to  say,  and  his  most  fervent  words  are 
not  expressive  enough  to  satisfy  his  eager 
soul.  And  even  when  he  seems  drawing  to 
a  close  he  is  unwilling  to  turn  and  leave. 
He  has  yet  one  more  argument,  if,  haply, 
one  more  soul  may  be  persuaded.  The 
people  in  those  pews,  listening,  do  not  need 
to  be  told  that  the  man  who  stands  there 
speaking  is  not  there  merely  because  he  has 
to  go  the  round  of  his  professional  duties, 
but  because  in  loyalty  to  God  and  his  own 
soul  he  could  be  nowhere  else.  He  feels  and 
they  know  that  he  feels  that  necessity  is  laid 
upon  him,  yea,  that  woe  is  unto  him  if  he 
preach  not  the  Gospel.  Like  an  apostle  who 
went  before  him,  he  can  truly  say :  I  hold  not 
my  life  of  any  account,  as  dear  unto  myself, 


180      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

SO  that  I  may  accomplish  my  course,  and  the 
ministry  which  I  received  from  the  Lord 
Jesus,  to  testify  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of 
God. 

But  Baxter's  preaching,  earnest  and  telling 
as  it  was,  was  not  the  only  means  he  em- 
ployed for  the  instruction  of  his  people,  and 
for  the  grounding  of  them  in  the  truth.  We 
have  quickened  the  pace  of  life  since  his 
time,  and  manners  and  customs  have  greatly 
changed;  but  we  may  yet  learn  much  from 
the  business-like  way  in  which  he  set  about 
getting  at  the  people.  Once  more  we  will 
let  him  tell  the  story  himself: 

"Every  Thursday  evening,"  he  says,  "my 
neighbors  that  were  most  desirous,  and  had 
opportunity,  met  at  my  house,  and  there  one 
of  them  repeated  the  sermon,  and  afterwards 
they  proposed  what  doubts  had  any  of  them 
had  about  the  sermon,  or  any  other  case  of 
conscience,  and  I  resolved  their  doubts. 
And,  last  of  all,  I  caused  sometimes  one  and 
sometimes  another  of  them  to  pray  (to  exer- 
cise them),  and  sometimes  I  prayed  with 
them  myself ;  which  (besides  singing  a  psalm) 
was  all  they  did.  And  once  a  week,  also, 
some  of  the  younger  sort,  who  were  not  fit  to 
pray  in  so  great  an  assembly,  met  among  a 


RICHARD  BAXTER  181 

few  more  privately,  where  tliey  spent  three 
hours  in  prayer  together.  Every  Saturday 
night  they  met  at  some  of  their  houses  to 
repeat  the  sermon  of  the  last  Lord's  day,  and 
to  pray  and  prepare  themselves  for  the  follow- 
ing day.  Once  in  a  few  weeks  we  had  a  day 
of  humiliation  on  one  occasion  or  other. 
Two  days  every  week  my  Assistant  and  I, 
myself,  took  fourteen  families  between  us  for 
private  catechising  and  conference  (he  going 
through  the  parish  and  the  town  coming  to 
me).  I  first  heard  them  recite  the  words  of 
the  catechism,  and  then  examined  them 
about  the  sense,  and,  lastly,  urged  them 
with  all  possible  engaging  reason  and  vehe- 
mency  to  answerable  affection  and  practice. 
If  any  of  them  were  stalled  through  igno- 
rance or  bashfulness  I  forbore  to  press  them 
any  further  to  answers,  but  made  them 
hearers,  and  either  examined  others  or  turned 
all  into  instruction  and  exhortation.  I  spent 
about  an  hour  with  a  family,  and  admitted 
no  others  to  be  present,  lest'  bashfulness 
should  make  it  burthensome,  or  any  should 
talk  of  the  weaknesses  of  others.  So  that  all 
the  afternoons  on  Mondays  and  Tuesdays  I 
spent  in  this  (after  I  had  begun  it,  for  it  was 
many  years  before  I  did  attempt  it) ;  and  my 


182      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

Assistant  spent  the  morning  of  the  same  days 
in  the  same  employment." 

Further  on  in  his  narrative  Baxter  adds: 
"  When  I  set  upon  personal  conference  with 
each  family,  and  catechising  them,  there 
were  very  few  families  in  all  the  town  that 
refused  to  come :  and  those  few  were  beggars 
at  the  town's-ends,  who  were  so  ignorant 
that  they  were  ashamed  it  should  be  mani- 
fest. And  few  families  went  from  me  with- 
out some  tears,  or  seemingly  serious  promises 
for  a  godly  life." 

Truly  this  was  a  consecrated  life.  This 
man  was  not  willing  to  go  to  heaven  alone. 
Of  him  we  may  say,  as  Matthew  Arnold 
said  of  his  illustrious  father:  — 

"  Thou  wouldst  not  alone 
Be  saved,  my  Father!  alone 
Conquer  and  come  to  the  goal, 
Leaving  the  rest  in  the  wild.  .  .  . 
Therefore  to  thee  it  was  given 
Many  to  save  with  thyself ; 
And  at  the  end  of  thy  day, 
O  faithful  Shepherd !  to  come 
Bringing  thy  sheep  in  thy  hand." 

The  arrangements  which  Baxter  tells  us  he 
carried  out  for  coming  into  personal  contact 
with  his  people  suggest  a  subject  of  practical 


RICHARD   BAXTER  183 

importance  to  the  effective  working  of  the 
Christian  pastorate.  His  plans  would  scarcely 
fit  in  with  the  modes  of  modern  life.  The 
demands  of  business  on  the  elders  and  of 
education  on  the  juniors  of  the  household,  to 
say  nothing  of  other  aspects  of  the  intense 
life  of  our  time,  make  it  difficult,  if  not  im- 
possible, to  take  family  after  family  an  hour 
at  a  time,  two  days  in  every  week.  More- 
over, the  engagements  of  public  life  on  the  . 
part  of  the  minister  himself  have  multiplied 
to  an  extent  of  which  our  forefathers  had  but . 
little  experience.  Still,  after  all  such  pleas 
have  been  listened  to  and  duly  weighed,  it 
nevertheless  remains  true  that  for  the  effec- 
tive working  of  our  churches  and  the  further- 
ing of  the  kingdom  of  God  among  them  it  is 
of  first  importance  for  the  minister  to  know 
the  people  and  come  into  personal  contact 
with  them.  And  that  not  merely  for  social 
and  friendly  intercourse,  which  has  its  value, 
but  also  for  direct  spiritual  purpose.  Locali- 
ties differ,  and  plans  which  succeed  in  one 
place  may  be  inapplicable  in  another;  but  in 
every  place  the  true-hearted  minister  of 
Christ  will  find  some  way  of  getting  at  his 
people  and  dealing  with  them  with  spiritual 
intent. 


184     PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

/  For  one  thing,  it  will  give  point  and 
^  directness  to  his  preaching.  A  minister  can 
always  preach  to  people  to  greater  purpose 
when  he  knows  them.  This  is  the  explana- 
tion of  the  fact  that  many  of  our  best  minis- 
ters preach  better  to  their  own  people  than 
/they  do  anywhere  else.  You  must  know 
•^  people  if  you  would  help  them,  and  you  must 
^  love  them  if  you  would  know  them.  Love 
is  the  one  power  that  opens  the  secrets  of 
life,  meets  its  reserves  and  calls  forth  its  con- 
fidences. You  can  almost  say  anything  to  a 
man  if  he  knows  and  feels  that  you  really 
care  for  him  and  want  to  serve  him.  Sym- 
pathy, true  heart-love  for  men,  such  as 
Christ  manifested,  will  give  clear  insight, 
delicate  touch  and  enduring  patience  in  deal- 
ing with  those  under  our  care.  It  is  twice 
blessed.  It  gives  power  to  the  minister  and 
it  is  precious  to  the  flock.  There  is  enough 
sorrow  in  life,  enough  weakness  and  suffer- 
ing, enough  heart-yearning  after  better  things 
to  make  men  value  the  kindness  which 
enters  into  their  sorrow  and  would  help 
them.  The  pastor  may  sometimes  wonder 
why  the  people  should  care  so  much  for  his 
coming  and  for  his  entering  into  their  expe- 
riences: but   true   brotherliness  of  soul  will 


RICHARD   BAXTER  185 

always  be  precious  in  a  world  like  this,  and 
will  often  do  much  to  prepare  the  way  of 
the  Lord  and  make  His  paths  straight. 

And  we  may  not  only  give  much  to  others, 
but  also  gain  much  for  ourselves.  The  sick- 
chamber,  where  saintly  men  and  women  face 
the  realities  of  life  and  death  alone  with 
God,  is  a  fine  school  for  the  minister.  And 
even  in  the  midst  of  the  activities  of  life  you 
meet  with  worthy  Christian  people  who  have 
gone  through  no  university,  taken  no  divin- 
ity course,  who  yet  have  been  diligent  scholars 
in  the  school  of  Christ,  and  are  deeply 
learned  in  spiritual  lore.  It  will  be  good 
for  you  to  know  them.  You  will  feel  nearer 
to  heaven  when  you  are  near  to  them,  will 
find  your  religious  convictions  intensified, 
and  you  will  learn  some  inward  truths  which 
will  qualify  you  more  than  ever  to  be  the 
teacher  of  others.  Inexperienced  at  starting, 
you  will  yet,  in  some  sense,  have  to  rule, 
and  that,  too,  over  the  free  minds  of  men 
educated  in  the  freest  of  communities.  You 
will  need,  therefore,  to  be  a  careful  student 
of  life  and  character.  Both  to  teach  well 
and  to  rule  well  you  will  need  to  know  the 
living  people  about  you.  We  who  live  so 
much  with  books  need  to  be  kept  from  the 


186      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

mistakes  into  which  bookish  men  are  only 
too  apt  to  fall.  The  only  way  to  keep  clear 
of  such  mistakes  is  to  come  ever  and  again 
into  contact  with  actual  life. 

In  setting  forth  the  causes  of  his  success 

at  Kidderminster,  Baxter  mentions  one  fact 

worthy  of  consideration.     He  says :  "  It  much 

,'  furthered  my  success  that  I  stayed  still  in 

I    this  one  place  (near  two  years  before  the  wars, 

\  and  above  fourteen  years  after).     For  he  that 

\  removeth  oft  from  place  to  place   may  sow 

/'good  seed  in  many  places,  but  is  not  like  to 

jsee  much   fruit   in  any;  unless   some    other 

'skilful  hand  shall  follow  him  to  water  it.     It 

was  a  great  advantage  to  me  to  have  almost 

all  the  religious  people    of  the  place    of  my 

own   instructing   and    informing;    and    that 

they   were    not    formed   into  erroneous  and 

factious  principles  before;  and  that  I  stayed 

to  see  them  grown  up  to  some  confirmedness 

and    maturity."     These    seem    to    me   wise 

words   on  the  part  of   this   preacher  of  the 

olden   time.     It  is  a  pity  when  a  minister 

comes  under  the  dominion  of  what  Bernard 

calls  "a  vagabond  and  unstable  heart,"  for 

no   unsettled   life    can   truly  thrive.     When 

the    learned  Jeremiah    Marsden,   one    of  the 

ejected  ministers,    wrote   godly   meditations 


RICHARD  BAXTER  187 

on  his  twenty-second  remov.al,  one  does  not 
wonder  that  he  exclaimed :  "  O  my  soul, 
what  a  sojourning  state  hath  thy  life  been! 
Now  here,  then  there,  and  in  no  abiding 
posture ! "  And  it  is  not  surprising  that  he 
should  express  a  longing  to  reach  the  city 
which  hath  foundations  of  God's  laying. 
This  is  an  exceptional  case,  of  course,  and 
occurred  in  troublous  persecuting  times. 
There  is  much  to  be  gained  by  steadfast  hold- 
ing on  so  long  as  a  man  can  do  so  with 
usefulness  and  hopefulness.  If  I  may  be 
pardoned  a  local  and  personal  reference,  I 
may  mention  that  the  church  of  which  I 
have  the  honor  to  be  minister  lost  its  illus- 
trious pastor,  John  Bunyan,  by  death,  in 
1688,  that  is,  two  hundred  and  eleven  years 
ago,  and  I  am  only  the  sixth  in  succession 
since  then,  and  all  my  predecessors  remained 
in  charge  till  death  called  them  to  the  higher 
service;  so  that  the  average  duration  of  these 
six  pastorates  is  thirty-five  years  each.  Well, 
I  will  say  nothing  of  the  present  occupant  of 
the  pastorate,  but  of  my  predecessors  I  will 
say  that  they  one  and  all  acquired  influence 
for  good  not  only  in  their  own  congregation, 
but  in  the  town  at  large,  which  they  never 
would  have  had  if,  like  some  men,  they  had 


188      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

always  been  restlessly  looking  out  for  some 
other  attractive  sphere  of  service.  Around 
them  there  gathered  one  of  the  most  sacred 
possessions  a  minister  can  have  —  the  loving 
affection  of  those  who  had  grown  up  from 
childhood  and  youth  to  manhood  by  their 
side.  No  absolute  rule  can  be  laid  down. 
There  are  times  when  a  change  may  be  best 
both  for  minister  and  people.  Another  place 
may  call  out  powers  in  him  which  are  only 
latent  where  he  is,  and  another  minister  may 
do  better  work  there  than  he  is  doing.  Still 
I  would  say  to  you,  with  all  brotherly  affec- 
tion when  you  leave  the  Divinity  School  of 
this  University,  to  enter  upon  actual  work, 
do  not  accept  a  charge  with  a  reserved  inten- 
tion of  finding  a  better  when  you  can.  No 
man  can  do  justice  to  any  people  when  he  is 
always  looking  wistfully  at  the  list  of  vacant 
churches  and  revolving  a  possible  flight. 
Take  the  place  meaning  to  do  your  best  by 
it,  as  you  are  in  honor  bound  to  do.  Do  not 
make  too  much  of  your  discouragements ;  do 
not  let  trifles  shake  your  stability  so  long  as 
you  have  the  love  of  your  people.  Some  of 
them  may  even  leave  you,  but  it  is  no  dis- 
paragement to  any  minister  that  he  does  not 
suit   every  order   of   mind.     God  has  many 


RICHARD  BAXTER  189 

children,  and  they  feed  in  different  ways. 
"  Therefore,  my  beloved  brethren,  be  ye  stead- 
fast, unmovable,  always  abounding  in  the 
work  of  the  Lord,  forasmuch  as  ye  know  that 
your  labor  is  not  in  vain  in  the  Lord." 

Up  to  this  point  I  have  been  speaking  of 
Baxter's  preaching,  his  methods  of  work,  and 
his  persistence  in  the  same  sphere  of  service ; 
I  should  like  to  say  a  word  or  two  on  the 
spirit  of  his  life  as  a  minister  of  Christ. 
There  was  a  breadth  of  mind  in  the  man 
not  common  in  his  day.  He  brought  to  the 
study  of  the  Bible  not  only  deep  spiritual 
feeling,  but  also  much  independence  of 
thought.  His  name  is  now  a  synonym  for 
orthodoxy  of  belief,  and  he  is  held  up  as  an 
example  by  those  who  bid  us  stand  in  the 
ways  and  see  and  ask  for  the  old  paths.  It 
may  surprise  some  people,  therefore,  to  find 
that  he  was  looked  on  with  suspicion  as 
heterodox,  by  the  men  of  his  own  time.  He 
was  neither  Calvinist  nor  Arminian,  as  these 
terms  were  understood  then.  The  views  he 
held  on  the  theory  of  redemption  were  his 
own  individual  conclusions  rather  than  the 
accepted  formulas  of  some  theological  school. 
He  would  not  deny  a  thing  because  it  was 
incapable  of  demonstrative  proof,  nor  reject 


190      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

seemingly  opposite  statements  of  Scripture 
because  he  could  not  reconcile  them.  He 
could  neither  agree  with  the  ultra  Calvinist 
nor  with  the  violent  Arminian  ;  and  though 
they  both  turned  against  him,  they  have  each 
since  then  been  approaching  nearer  and 
nearer  the  ground  on  which  he  took  his 
stand.  Whether  we  agree  with  his  opinions 
or  not  we  cannot  but  feel  that  he  exercised  a 
healthy  influence  on  the  Christian  Church, 
that  he  initiated  that  opposition  to  extreme 
opinions  which  has  been  growing  ever  since, 
and  that,  as  some  one  has  said,  his  eclecticism 
was  one  of  the  first  stones  laid  in  that  temple 
of  theological  unity  which  takes  so  many 
generations  to  build. 

When  past  middle  life  Baxter  wrote  a  kind 
of  review  of  his  earlier  self,  and  of  the  ways 
he  had  of  looking  at  things  when  he  was 
younger,  which  is  still  fresh  and  racy  to 
read.  Dean  Stanley  tells  us  that  Sir  James 
Stephen  once  recommended  him  with  his  own 
peculiar  solemnity  to  read  the  last  twenty- 
four  pages  of  the  first  part  of  Baxter's 
"Narrative  of  his  own  Life."  "Lose  not  a 
day,"  said  he,  "in  reading  it.  You  will 
never  repent  of  it."  And  says  the  Dean: 
"  That  very  night  I  followed  his  advice,  and 


RICHARD  BAXTER  191 

I  have  ever  since  publicly  and  privately- 
advised  every  theological  student  to  do  the 
same."  If  at  any  time  you  should  turn  to 
those  twenty -four  pages  in  that  old  folio  of 
1696  you  will  feel  that  this  praise  is  not  ill- 
bestowed.  There  is  in  them  the  note  of  clear 
sanity  of  mind  and  the  ring  of  honest  sincer- 
ity of  heart,  and  they  show  how  we  may  all 
grow  from  less  to  more.  He  has  learnt  to 
be  more  tolerant,  he  says,  as  life  has  gone 
on.  He  sees  that  good  men  are  not  so  good 
as  he  once  thought  them,  and  that  few  are  so 
bad  as  their  enemies  imagine.  In  his  youth 
he  was  quickly  past  fundamental  questions 
and  ran  into  a  multitude  of  controversies. 
But  the  older  he  grew  the  smaller  stress  he 
laid  upon  these  controversies  and  curiosities 
—  though  still  his  intellect  abhorred  con- 
fusion —  as  finding  greater  uncertainty  in 
them  and  less  usefulness  where  there  is  cer- 
tainty. If  he  had  any  influence  with  younger 
men  he  would  persuade  them  to  study  and 
live  upon  the  essential  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity and  godliness.  He  is  going  against 
the  grain  of  the  natural  man  in  saying  this: 
"I  presume  to  say  that  in  this  I  as  much 
gainsay  my  natural  inclination  to  subtility 
and   accurateness    in   knowing,   as   they  are 


192      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

likely  to  do  by  theirs,  if  they  obey  my 
counsel."  He  thinks  that  most  controversies 
have  more  need  of  right  stating  than  of 
debating^  and  that  if  his  skill  is  increased  in 
anything  it  is  in  separating  the  real  from  the 
verbal,  and  proving  to  the  disputants  that 
they  differ  less  than  they  think  they  do.  He 
has  grown  also  more  modest  about  himself: 
"Heretofore  I  knew  much  less  than  now, 
and  yet  was  not  half  so  much  acquainted 
with  my  ignorance.  I  little  knew  how  im- 
perfectly I  understood  the  points  whose  dis- 
covery delighted  me,  nor  how  many  things  I 
was  yet  a  stranger  to.  But  now  I  find  far 
greater  darkness  upon  all  things,  and  jDcr- 
ceive  how  very  little  it  is  that  we  know  in 
comparison  of  that  which  we  are  ignorant 
of." 

Coming  to  yet  closer  matters  still,  he 
has  a  deeper  sense  of  sin  than  once  he  had. 
Once  his  sins  troubled  him,  now  it  is  his 
sinfulness.  "  In  my  younger  years  my  trouble 
for  sin  was  most  about  my  actual  failings  in 
thought,  word  or  action.  But  now  I  am 
much  more  troubled  for  inward  defects,  and 
omission  or  want  of  the  vital  duties  or  graces 
of  the  soul.  Had  I  all  the  riches  of  the 
world  how  gladly  would  I  give  them  for  a 


RICHARD  BAXTER  193 

fuller  knowledge,  belief  and  love  of  God  and 
everlasting  glory!  These  wants  are  the 
greatest  burden  of  my  life,  which  oft  maketh 
my  life  itself  a  burden.  To  have  sinned 
while  I  preached  and  wrote  against  sin,  and 
had  such  abundant  and  great  obligations  from 
God,  and  made  so  many  promises  against  it, 
doth  lay  me  very  low ;  not  so  much  in  fear  of 
hell  as  in  great  displeasure  against  myself. 
When  God  forgiveth  me  I  cannot  forgive 
myself."  But  on  the  other  hand,  he  has 
learnt  to  look  less  to  himself  and  more  to 
God:  "Heretofore  I  placed  much  of  my 
religion  in  tenderness  of  heart  and  grieving 
for  sin  and  penitential  tears ;  and  less  of  it  in 
the  love  of  God,  and  studying  His  love  and 
goodness,  and  in  His  joyful  praises  than  now 
I  do.  And  now  I  am  less  troubled  for  want 
of  grief  and  tears  —  though  I  more  value 
humility,  and  refuse  not  needed  humiliation 
—  but  my  conscience  now  looketh  at  Love 
and  Delight  in  God  and  praising  Him,  as  the 
top  of  all  my  religious  duties,  for  which  it  is 
that  I  value  and  use  the  rest.  ...  I  was  once 
wont  to  meditate  most  on  ray  own  heart,  and 
to  dwell  at  home,  and  look  little  higher;  I 
was  still  poring  either  on  my  sins  or  wants 
or  examining  my  sincerity.     But  now  I  see 

13 


194      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

more  need  of  a  higher  work;  and  that  I 
should  look  oftener  upon  Christ  and  God  and 
Heaven  than  upon  my  own  heart.  It  is 
ahove  that  I  must  find  matter  of  delight  and 
joy  and  love  and  peace  itself.  Therefore  I 
would  have  one  thought  at  home  upon  myself 
and  sins,  and  many  thoughts  ahove  upon  the 
high  and  amiable  and  beatifying  Objects." 

I  have  explained  Baxter's  marvellous  suc- 
cess at  Kidderminster  by  calling  attention  to 
his  direct  and  powerful  speech,  his  close  con- 
tact with  his  people,  and  his  going  on  steadily 
year  after  year  urging  men  to  come  into  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  But  may  I  not  now  say 
that  all  these  things  rested  on  something 
deeper  still  —  that  they  gathered  point,  fire 
and  force  from  the  deep  heart  experiences 
revealed  in  the  confessions  I  have  read  to 
you?  This  man  got  his  power  by  being 
\  alone  with  God  and  by  looking  into  the  face 
of  God !  And  it  is  there  we  must  get  power 
too.  There  is  no  substitute  for  this  power 
and  no  other  way  of  getting  it.  It  is  the 
soul  that  has  caught  fire  from  the  altar  which 
sets  other  souls  on  fire.  Let  me  from 
{  Baxter's  "  Reformed  Pastor  "  —  which  should 
(-  be  every  pastor's  companion  —  close  with  the 
burning  words  he  addressed  to  his  brethren 


RICHARD   BAXTER  195 

in  the  ministry  now  more  than  two  centuries 
ago.  Speaking  of  the  preacher's  message  as 
an  ambassador  for  Christ,  he  sa3^s :  "  O  the 
gravity,  the  seriousness,  the  incessant  dili- 
gence which  these  things  require!  I  know 
not  what  others  think  of  them,  but  for  my 
part  I  am  ashamed  of  my  stupidity,  and 
wonder  at  myself  that  I  deal  not  with  my 
own  and  others'  souls,  as  one  that  looks  for 
the  great  day  of  the  Lord;  and  that  I  can 
have  room  for  almost  any  other  thoughts  or 
words,  and  that  such  astonishing  matters  do 
not  wholly  absorb  my  mind.  I  marvel  how 
I  can  preach  of  them  slightly  and  coldly ;  and 
how  I  can  let  men  alone  in  their  sins;  and 
that  I  do  not  go  to  them,  and  beseech  them, 
for  the  Lord's  sake,  to  repent,  however  they 
take  it,  and  whatever  pains  or  trouble  it 
should  cost  me!  I  seldom  come  out  of  the 
pulpit  but  my  conscience  smiteth  me  that  I 
have  been  no  more  serious  and  fervent  in 
such  a  case.  It  accuseth  me  not  so  much  for 
want  of  ornaments  or  elegancy,  nor  for  let- 
ting fall  an  unhandsome  word ;  but  it  asketh 
me  'How  couldst  thou  speak  of  life  and 
death  with  such  a  heart?  How  couldst  thou 
preach  of  heaven  and  hell  in  such  a  careless, 
sleepy  manner?      Dost   thou    believe    what 


196      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

thou  sayest  ?  Art  thou  in  earnest  or  in  jest  ? 
Shouldst  thou  not  weep  over  such  a  people, 
and  should  not  thy  tears  interrupt  thy  words  ? 
Truly  this  is  the  peal  that  conscience  doth 
ring  in  my  ears.  O  Lord,  do  that  on  our 
own  souls  which  Thou  wouldst  use  us  to  do 
on  the  souls  of  others !  " 


VII 

REPRESENTATIVE   PREACHERS   OF 
MODERN  PURITANISM 

I.  THOMAS  BINNEY  AND  C.   H.   SPURGEON 


LECTURE   VII 

REPRESENTATIVE  PREACHERS   OF 
MODERN  PURITANISM 

I.   THOMAS  BINNEY  AND  C.   H.   SPURGEON 

IN  the  last  lecture  we  came  under  the  speL 
of  the  devout  and  fervid  spirit  of  Richard 
Baxter,  a  man  it  is  good  for  every  Christian 
minister  to  know.  The  literary  form  the 
Puritan  sermon  took  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury may  be  unsuited  to  our  time,  but  the 
spirit  of  the  men  who  made  Puritanism  the 
force  that  it  was  and  is,  is  a  thing  for  all 
time.  For  many  of  them  walked  with  God 
with  a  fervor  of  devotion  and  a  closeness  of 
fellowship  all  too  rare  in  human  life.  The 
Two  Thousand  ejected  from  the  ministry  of 
the  Church  of  England,  for  Nonconformity, 
in  1662,  though  cast  out  by  man,  were  elect 
souls  of  God.  Their  unfaltering  loyalty  to 
conscience;  the  Christlike  spirit  in  which 
they  accepted  the  stern  discipline  of  persecu- 
tion, entailing  the  loss  of  liberty  and  home 
and  means  of  livelihood;  their  subdued  sor- 


200      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

row  over  enforced  silent  Sabbaths,  and  over 
separation  from  the  flocks  they  had  loved  and 
served  —  all  these  things  make  them  still  a 
spiritual  force,  and  their  influence  a  posses- 
sion for  ever  to  the  Church  of  God. 

There  were  others  of  these  men  in  those 
days,  besides  Richard  Baxter,  well  worth  our 
knowing.  It  is  good  for  us  still  to  commune 
in  quiet  hours  with  men  like  good  Philip 
Henry,  of  Broad  Oak  in  Shropshire,  who 
hallowed  all  things  by  prayer;  whose  family 
life  was  sweet  with  a  divine  fragrance ;  and 
who  lived  in  the  spirit  of  that  godly  mother 
of  his,  who  said,  ere  she  left  him,  "  My  head 
is  in  heaven,  and  my  heart  is  in  heaven;  it  is 
but  one  step  more  and  I  shall  be  there  too." 
We  should  find  it  helpful,  also,  to  walk  at 
times  in  loving  converse  with  such  saintly 
souls  as  Isaac  Ambrose,  the  minister  of 
Preston,  who,  not  many  miles  from  Standish 
village  and  Duxbury  Hall,  from  which  Miles 
Standish  came,  retired  to  quiet  woods  for 
meditative  thought  and  wrestling  prayer.  Of 
this  good  man's  communion  with  heaven  we 
get  such  glimpses  as  these:  "May  13:  I 
retired  to  a  solitary  and  silent  place  to  prac- 
tise especially  the  secret  duties  of  a  Chris- 
tian;"   "May    15:    I    fell    on   the    duty   of 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     201 

self-trial,  and  in  the  morning  confessed  my 
sins  before  and  since  conversion,  wherein  the 
Lord  sweetly  melted  my  heart."  He  found, 
as  many  have  found,  that  the  way  to  the 
heights  is  through  the  depths;  for  he  says: 
"  In  the  conclusion  the  Lord  struck  me  with  a 
reverence  of  His  majesty  and  presence,  filled 
my  soul  with  spiritual  refreshings,  enlarged 
my  heart  with  praises  of  Him  and  desires  to 
live  unto  Him."  So,  again,  not  to  dwell  too 
long  on  these  things,  we  feel  how  times  have 
changed  from  restful  repose  to  hasteful  speed 
when  we  turn  in  with  John  Angier,  the  min- 
ister of  Denton,  in  Lancashire.  Born  at 
Dedham,  on  our  side  the  sea,  his  relatives 
founded  the  old  church  at  Dedham,  on  your 
side;  converted  under  the  great  Puritan 
preacher,  John  Rogers,  trained  at  Emmanuel 
College,  and  continuing  his  preparation  for 
the  ministry  under  John  Cotton,  at  Boston, 
he  settled  at  Denton,  where  the  spirit  of  his 
life  seemed  to  diffuse  the  fragrance  as  of 
heaven  itself.  With  his  ministerial  brethren 
from  the  neighborhood  round  he  kept  what 
were  called  "private  days,"  for  the  purpose 
of  deepening  their  own  spiritual  life,  —  days 
which  were  long  remembered  for  the  holy  and 
solemn  impressions  produced  upon  the  hearts 


202      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

of  all.  We  feel  we  are  but  feeble  folk  in 
these  days,  when  we  find  the  great  Noncon- 
formist, Oliver  Heywood,  telling  us  how  in 
the  days  of  persecution,  on  one  of  these  occa- 
sions in  John  Angler's  house:  "I  continued 
about  three  hours  in  prayer,  pouring  out  my 
soul  before  the  Lord,  principally  on  behalf  of 
His  church."  This  may  be  one  extreme,  but 
in  this  restless  age  we  are  perhaps  in  danger 
from  the  other,  for  it  is  the  life  which  is 
lived  with  God  which  has  power  with  men. 

These  men  belonged  to  the  heroic  age  of 
Nonconformity  in  England,  and  as  they 
gradually  passed  away,  unfortunately,  they 
were  not  succeeded  by  men  of  the  like  kind. 
After  the  first  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and,  indeed,  during  its  course,  a 
wave  of  lifeless  Arian  teaching  passed  over 
the  pulpits  of  the  land,  and,  as  certainly  as 
the  night  follows  the  day,  slowly  and  insen- 
sibly there  came  a  period  of  spiritual  reaction 
and  decline.  Christless  preaching  is  always 
followed  by  desolated  sanctuaries  and  crumb- 
ling walls.  First  there  came  silence  as  to 
the  great  Evangelical  truths  so  forcibly 
preached  in  an  earlier  time,  —  a  silence  which 
was  explained  at  first  as  not  arising  from 
dislike  to  the  old  truths  themselves,  but  only 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     203 

from  dislike  to  the  old  modes  of  stating  them. 
Definite  teaching  was  objected  to  as  dogma- 
tism, and  as  being  offensive  and  unprofitable. 
Stress  came  to  be  laid  more  on  the  natural 
and  moral  grounds  of  religion  and  less  on  the 
supernatural  and  spiritual.  The  old  phrases 
still  continued  to  be  used,  but  they  were 
emptied  of  their  former  meaning.  It  has 
been  well  said  that  both  preachers  and  people 
continued  to  speak  their  fathers'  language 
after  they  had  lost  their  fathers'  faith.  There 
were  many  and  honorable  exceptions,  of 
course ;  still,  both  in  the  Established  Church 
and  in  the  Nonconformist  communities,  the 
mere  preaching  of  moral  duties,  apart  from 
that  grace  of  God  in  salvation  by  which  alone 
they  can  be  fulfilled,  left  the  land  mourning 
and  desolate.  The  experiment  of  trying  to 
make  men  better  without  the  Cross  of  Christ 
for  them  and  the  Spirit  of  God  within  them 
was  tried  on  as  large  a  scale  as  it  is  ever 
likely  to  be  tried  again ;  and  the  result  was 
a  nation  largely  given  over  to  coarseness  and 
sensuality. 

The  awakening  of  religious  life  in  the 
nation  commenced  when  Wesley  and  White- 
field  brought  back  the  almost  forgotten  Gos- 
pel to  the  people.     Men  and  women  who  had 


204      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

gone  to  sleep  under  the  droning,  drowsy 
preachers  in  the  churches  began  to  weep  over 
their  sins  when  there  was  brought  to  them 
the  Gospel  of  God's  love  to  us  in  Christ. 
And  the  revival  among  the  people  outside 
the  churches  told  upon  the  life  and  preaching 
within.  The  Congregationalists  received 
considerable  accessions  to  their  membership 
from  among  those  converted  under  the  fervid 
appeals  of  the  field  preachers.  Still,  even 
these  churches,  while  retaining  the  Evangelic 
faith,  looked  somewhat  doubtfully  upon  the 
revival  movement.  Respectability  was  dear 
to  their  hearts,  and  staid  propriety  sat  in  the 
chief  seats  of  the  synagogue.  Many  looked 
upon  Wesley  and  Whitefield  in  those  days 
very  much  as  some  people  look  upon  the  Sal- 
vation Army  now;  and  Dr.  Doddridge  was 
censured  by  some  of  his  brethren  of  the 
extremely  proper  sort  for  permitting  George 
Whitefield  to  preach  in  his  pulpit  at  North- 
ampton. Even  those  ministers  who  had 
remained  true  to  the  Evangelic  faith  preached 
in  •  set,  formal  manner,  and  in  a  rotund, 
rhetorical  style  which  they  had  only  too  dili- 
gently imitated  from  Dr.  Johnson,  then  re- 
garded as  the  great  master  of  style.  It  was 
Johnsonese    without    Johnson's    vigor    and 


PREACHERS    OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    205 

point.  One  can  only  wonder  now  at  the 
enduring  patience  of  the  good  people  who 
sat  out  some  of  the  sermons  of  even  some  of 
the  foremost  men  at  the  end  of  last  century 
and  the  beginning  of  this.  Samuel  Palmer, 
for  instance,  the  editor  of  the  Nonconformist 
Memorial,  was  the  successor  of  Matthew 
Henry  at  Hackney,  and  one  of  the  predeces- 
sors of  Thomas  Binney  at  the  Weigh  House 
Church  in  London.  He  was  also  a  consider- 
able author  and  a  preacher  of  influence  in  the 
city;  yet  as  one  reads  his  sermons  now  we 
fair  to  see  how  that  influence  was  acquired. 
Platitude  succeeds  to  platitude  with  dreary 
monotony.  Some  one  has  advised  all  preachers 
to  avoid  the  obvious,  but  this  man  seems  to 
ride  across  country  in  eager  search  of  it.  As 
an  illustration  let  me  give  you  the  divisions 
of  a  sermon  of  his  from  the  text:  "And  His 
commandments  are  not  grievous."  Referring 
to  these  commandments,  "I  shall  apply," 
says  he,  "  this  commendation  of  them,  and  a 
high  commendation  indeed  it  is,  which  sug- 
gests a  very  cogent  motive  to  obey  them,  the 
justice  of  which  I  shall  now  endeavor  to 
evince  by  the  mention  of  six  particulars. 
Christ's  commandments  cannot  be  justly 
esteemed    grievous,    for    (1)    they   are    not 


206      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

unreasonable ;  (2)  they  are  not  impracticable ; 
(3)  they  are  not  dishonorable;  (4)  they  are 
not  dangerous;  (5)  they  are  not  unpleasant; 
and  (6)  they  are  not  unprofitable."  I  think 
you  will  agree  with  me  that  the  man  in  the 
pew  who  heard  such  a  programme  as  that  set 
forth  in  the  pulpit,  might  well  be  pardoned 
if  he  either  at  once  settled  himself  com- 
fortably down  to  sleep  or  precipitately  made 
for  the  door.^ 

In  the  early  years  of  this  century,  as  well 
as  in  the  closing  years  of  the  century  before, 
there  were  Loudon  preachers,  really  able  men, 
and  exercising  wide  influence  as  ministers, 
who  were  stiff  and  stately  in  their  conduct 
of  religious  services,  unreal  and  conventional 
past  all  bearing.  A  keen  and  not  unkindly 
observer  of  the  time  has  told  us  of  a  Congre- 
gational minister,  south  of  the  Thames,  who 
sometimes  had  the  honor  of  having  even  royal 
dukes  in  his  congregation,  and  who  in  dig- 
nified manner  employed  a  page  to  carry  his 
sermon  into  the  pulpit,  arrange  it  carefully 
for  his   convenience    on    the    cushion,    and, 

1  Principal  Caird  was  severe  yet  not  far  from  the  truth 
when  he  said  tliat  "  the  pattern  sermon  of  the  Georgian  era 
seems  to  liave  been  constructed  ahnost  expressly  to  steer 
clear  of  all  possible  ways  of  getting  human  beings  to  listen 
to  it."  —  University  Addresses,  p.  201. 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    207 

when  the  service  was  over,  carry  it  safely 
back  to  him  to  his  carriage.  We  are  not 
surprised  to  be  told  that  the  preaching  of 
this  divine  was  especially  attractive  to  people 
who  did  not  wish  to  have  their  minds 
troubled  with  much  thought  nor  their  hearts 
excited  with  much  feeling.  His  hearers  were 
led  along  the  path  of  easy  description  through 
green  meadows,  flowers  blooming  on  every 
side.  For  them  there  were  no  rugged  steeps 
to  climb,  neither  were  there  any  sublime  out- 
look's over  grand  and  distant  scenes. 

In  this  same  first  quarter  of  the  present 
century  a  father  and  two  sons  occupied  three 
of  the  most  famous  London  pulpits,  of  whom 
it  is  said  that  they  never  forgot  that  they 
were  "Reverend."  One  who  knew  them 
well  tells  us  that  all  three  alike  were  carefully 
precise,  exact,  regular,  orthodox ;  never  utter- 
ing a  word  they  would  wish  to  retract,  or 
that  would  excite  any  feeling  of  suspicion  or 
surprise  in  the  minds  of  their  hearers.  Every 
text  was  treated  as  the  orthodox  commenta- 
tors expounded  it,  every  doctrine  as  the  great 
divines  proposed  it.  Calvin,  Owen,  Good- 
win spoke  through  their  lips,  although  they 
were  not  as  learned  as  Calvin,  nor  so  pro- 
found  as    Owen,    nor  so    argumentative   as 


208      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

Goodwin.  The  introduction  of  each  sermon 
consisted  of  four  or  five  appropriate  sen- 
tences. The  divisions  were  carefully  ex- 
pressed and  deliberately  enunciated.  They 
consisted  of  a  like  number  of  nouns,  adjec- 
tives and  verbs  corresponding  in  their  order 
and  arrangement  so  as  to  be  immediately 
apprehended  and  easily  remembered.  One 
division  was  never  allowed  to  encroach  upon 
the  space  appropriated  to  another.  They 
were  so  perfectly  arranged  that  there  was 
no  occasion  to  suppress  a  thought  or  to  pass 
hastily  over  any  part  of  the  subject.  All 
was  exact,  precise,  regular,  just  as  propriety 
required,  and  as  the  hearers  expected.  The 
preacher  knew  exactly  when  to  finish,  and 
just  as  exactly  his  hearers  knew  when  to 
expect  the  concluding  sentences. 

This  regular  round  of  staid  propriety  and 
kid-gloved  gentility  had  gone  on  so  long, 
year  after  year,  that  it  had  almost  come  to  be 
looked  upon  as  part  of  the  system  of  the  uni- 
verse. Happily,  however,  in  the  earlier  half 
of  the  present  century  there  came  a  change 
to  a  broader  and  more  living  spirit  in  the 
churches.  Indeed,  the  spirit  of  change  was 
abroad  in  many  departments  of  human 
thought    before    that.     A    wave    of    feeling 


PREACHERS    OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    209 

passed  over  Europe  after  a  time  of  stagna- 
tion. We  see  it  in  poetry  as  well  as  in 
political  life.  The  ruling  spirits  in  English 
Poetry,  previous  to  1770,  were  Dryclen, 
Pope,  Swift,  Prior,  and  men  of  their  school 
who,  while  maintaining  that  "the  proper 
study  of  mankind  is  man,"  approached  that 
study  from  the  side  of  cold  speculation  and 
with  the  pen  of  satire.  After  a  pause 
Cowper  appeared  with  his  "Task,"  bringing 
a  kindlier  and  truer  spirit;  teaching  men  to 
love  Nature  for  her  own  sake,  and  to  sym- 
pathize with  human  life  irrespective  of  caste 
and  convention.  Three  years  later  came 
Burns,  with  his  earlier  poems,  restoring  that 
passion  to  our  poetry  which  it  had  lost  since 
the  days  of  Elizabeth.  The  way  having  thus 
been  prepared  for  him,  Wordsworth  appeared, 
looking  at  Nature  lovingly  and  at  man's  life 
sympathetically;  he,  in  his  turn,  again  pre- 
paring the  way  for  Tennyson  and  the  rest 
who  were  to  follow.  The  change  accom- 
plished was  nothing  short  of  a  revolution. 

Not  merely  in  politics  and  in  poetry,  but 
still  more  in  religious  life  and  thought  we 
seem  to  pass  from  one  world  to  another  when 
we  pass  from  the  eighteenth  century  to  the 
nineteenth.  The  Puritan  theology  of  the 
u 


210      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

Congregational  churches  had  been  modified 
by  the  great  Evangelical  revival,  and  also 
by  the  necessity  of  conflict,  long  continued, 
with  Arian  and  Socinian  teaching.  The 
revival,  bringing  a  new  wave  of  spiritual 
influence  over  the  churches,  created  new 
spiritual  activities.  Missionary  societies  were 
organized,  a  Bible  society  was  formed,  and 
a  craving  came  over  Christian  men  for  more 
brotherly  communion  and  greater  unity  in 
service  than  they  had  known  before.  It  was 
impossible  that  the  pulpit  should  remain 
untouched  by  the  combined  force  of  these 
various  waves  of  influence.  Of  necessity  it 
caught  the  freer  inspiration  of  this  new  birth- 
time,  and  to  some  extent  broke  away  from 
the  stiff  conventionality,  the  formal  precision, 
and  the  wearisome  wordiness  which  had  too 
long  cramped  its  message  and  its  life.  It  is 
to  this  Renaissance  of  Preaching  which  came 
into  the  modern  Puritanism  of  England  I 
wish  to  invite  your  attention  now.  We  will 
look  at  it  in  the  persons  of  some  of  its  charac- 
teristic representatives. 

During  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  cen- 
tury the  pulpit  of  one  of  the  foremost  Con- 
gregational churches  in  the  city  of  London 
was  occupied  by  John  Clayton,  perhaps  the 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    211 

most  conspicuous  of  the  formal,  precise  and 
genteel  ministers  I  have  described  to  you. 
He  had  a  wealthy  congregation  to  which  he 
ministered  for  more  than  forty  years;  and 
his  all-too-complacent  biographer  tells  us, 
with  a  little  flutter  of  delight,  how,  at  the 
close  of  every  service,  there  might  be  seen  at 
the  door  of  his  church  "from  sixteen  to 
twenty  equipages,  or  full-appointed  gentle- 
men's carriages,  waiting  to  convey  their 
owners,  after  service,  to  suburban  villages." 
For  years  and  years  this  ministry  went  on; 
but  at  length,  like  all  things  earthly,  it  came 
to  an  end  at  last,  and  with  it,  so  far  as  that 
church  was  concerned,  "the  age  of  silk  and 
lavender,  and  of  successful  suppression  of 
thought  under  decorous  phrases,  came  to  an 
end,"  also.  Then,  in  1829,  like  a  breeze 
from  the  hills,  there  came  to  the  vacant 
pulpit  a  preacher  who  was  every  inch  a  man, 
and  who  cared  very  little  indeed  for  "  equip- 
ages or  full-appointed  gentlemen's  carriages." 
This  preacher  was  that  Thomas  Binney 
whom,  as  I  have  already  told  you,  Alex- 
ander Maclaren  described  as  "the  man  who 
taught  me  to  preach." 

This  new  celebrity  had  been  quietly  matur- 
ing  for  five   years   in   the   seclusion   of    an 


212     PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

obscure  pastorate  in  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
Though  not  physically  robust  in  those  days, 
he  was  yet  a  striking  personality,  tall,  erect, 
commanding,  one  of  Nature's  aristocracy  —  a 
born  king  of  men.  We  may  say  of  him  as 
Calamy  said  of  John  Howe :  "  There  is  that 
in  his  looks  and  carriage  which  discovers 
that  he  has  something  within  him  which  is 
uncommonly  great  and  tends  to  excite  vener- 
ation." It  would  be  exaggeration  to  say 
that  this  man,  by  himself,  ushered  in  a  new 
era;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  a  time  of 
national  upwaking  in  many  directions.  It 
would  be  true,  however,  to  say  that  so  far  as 
the  Congregationalists  of  England  were  con- 
cerned, he  was  the  foremost  and  strongest  of 
those  who  delivered  the  pulpit  from  artifi- 
cially-constructed sermons  and  stilted  rhet- 
oric, and  began  to  speak  to  men  from  the 
preacher's  desk  in  human,  familiar,  everyday 
speech. 

Speaking  generally,  the  preaching  before 
his  time  largely  consisted  of  ethical  disqui- 
sitions or  abstract  discussions  of  Christian 
doctrine.  In  a  style  which  at  once  arrested 
attention,  Mr.  Binney  sought  to  bring  God's 
revelation  in  Scripture  and  man's  life  into 
vital  and  fruitful  relations,  and  to  make  the 


M 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     213 

one  interpret  the  other.  To  him  the  spiritual 
universe  as  revealed  in  the  Scriptures,  and 
unfolded  in  the  Christian  experience  of  the 
Church,  was  as  real  as  the  natural  world  is 
to  the  man  of  science;  and  in  scientific 
manner  he  investigated  the  laws  of  that  uni- 
verse, applied  its  facts  and  verified  his  con- 
clusions by  the  facts.  To  him  the  Scripture 
was  a  living  and  authoritative  word  from 
God,  declaring  not  speculations  but  divine 
facts,  and  revealing  divine  forces  which,  like 
the  leaves  of  the  Tree  of  Life,  were  for  the 
healing  of  the  nations.  He  was  not  himself, 
he  would  not  have  any  Christian  minister  to 
be,  the  merely  cloistered  student,  immersed 
in  books,  and  knowing  but  little  of  the  ways 
of  men.  On  one  occasion  when  addressing 
some  divinity  students,  he  said  to  them: 
"As  you  walk  through  the  streets,  having 
prayed  in  the  study,  keep  your  eyes  open 
there;  look  at  all  things,  prices  and  people, 
how  they  buy  and  how  they  sell,  the  sellers 
and  the  purchasers,  the  hours  of  labor  and 
the  hours  of  rest;  try  to  look  at  all,  try  to 
know  the  whole  tariff  of  trade,  and  do  not  be 
afraid  to  find  in  it  all  matter  for  your  ser- 
mons. You  are  to  be  teachers  —  commend 
yourselves  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the 


214     PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

sight  of  God.  Know  the  world's  thoughts 
and  the  world's  ways,  that  you  may  be  the 
world's  masters  and  mmisters." 

But  while  thus  conversant  with  actual  life 
himself,  as  he  would  have  all  preachers  to 
be,  the  great  purpose  of  Mr.  Binney's  min- 
istry was  to  make  vital  to  the  people  the 
Scriptures  of  God.  From  the  first  he  was 
recognized  by  the  men  of  his  own  time  as  a 
lineal  descendant  of  the  men  of  Puritan  days. 
His  great  sermons  were  treatises  after  the 
old  Puritan  plan  as  regards  extent  of  discus- 
sion ;  but  that  discussion  was  carried  on  with 
such  freshness  and  vividness  that  the  old 
familiar  truths  were  clothed  with  new  and 
living  power.  I  may  instance,  for  example, 
the  Annual  Missionary  Sermon  he  preached 
in  the  May  of  1839.  It  was  an  occasion 
which,  year  by  year,  was  counted  great  and 
drew  memorable  audiences.  In  the  year  I 
have  mentioned,  Mr.  Binney  was  the  preacher, 
taking  for  his  subject :  "  Messiah  Suffering 
and  Messiah  Satisfied  "  (Isa.  liii.  11).  One 
who  heard  him  that  day  tells  us  that  for 
nearly  two  hours  he  enchained  the  attention 
of  that  vast  audience  by  the  force  of  his 
arguments  and  the  fervor  of  his  appeals  —  fire 
flashing  out  sentence  after  sentence :  electric 


PREACHERS    OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    215 

life,  as  it  were,  flowing  not  only  from  his 
lips,  but  from  face  and  form,  from  look  and 
gesture,  in  short,  from  the  whole  man.  And 
while  thus  remarkable  for  sermons  of  great 
massiveness  and  force,  of  rich  imagination 
and  highly-cultured  beauty;  and  while  able 
to  enthrall  for  hours  one  of  the  most  repre- 
sentative audiences  of  thoughtful  men,  he 
could  also  keep  his  hold  on  simple  village 
folk  quite  as  effectively  as  on  the  most  cul- 
tured congregation.  One  who  went  with 
him  says  that  he  could  never  forget  a  sermon 
he  heard  him  preach  in  a  little  country 
chapel  from  the  text:  "The  Lord  God  is  a 
sun  and  shield."  His  audience  might  num- 
ber between  one  and  two  hundred,  and  there 
he  stood  talking  familiarly,  but  with  singular 
wisdom  and  beauty,  on  the  light  and  defence 
which  the  Lord  God  is  to  His  people.  He 
gathered  fitting  illustration  from  the  sunshine 
pouring  that  summer's  day  through  the  win- 
dows of  the  ivy-mantled  walls;  and  then, 
comparing  Jehovah  to  a  shield  of  strength, 
a  tower  of  protection,  he  spoke  of  the  be- 
liever as  a  child  within  the  impregnable  for- 
tress of  his  father,  and  looking,  without  fear, 
upon  foes  assailing  its  gates. 

You   will  probably   gather,    from   what  I 


216      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

have  said,  that  this  preacher  did  not  read 
his  sermons.  As  a  rule  he  did  not  even 
write  them,  although  after  thinking  them 
out,  he  carefully,  by  writing,  prepared  them 
for  speaking.  He  admitted  that  reading  has 
its  advantages,  and  in  an  early  book  of  his 
even  advocated  that  mode  of  preaching,  con- 
tending that  there  is  no  reason  why  a  written 
composition  should  be  tame  or  its  delivery 
inanimate.  For  with  a  view  to  oral  delivery 
the  sermon  may  be  written  with  freedom  and 
force,  with  vigorous  images  and  fervid  decla- 
mation; it  may  be  composed  for  the  hearing 
of  numbers  and  delivered  with  the  earnest- 
ness of  nature,  sincerity,  and  zeal.  Still, 
these  expressed  opinions  of  his  earlier  time 
notwithstanding,  except  on  very  rare  occa- 
sions, Mr.  Binney  did  not  read  his  sermons. 
If  he  had  done  so  he  certainly  would  not 
have  been  the  preacher  he  was.  Reading,  no 
doubt,  secures  self-possession,  but  sometimes 
self-abandonment  is  more  powerful  than  self- 
possession.  The  preacher's  eye  fixed  on  his 
paper  is  missed  by  the  people,  and  the  grander 
swell  of  the  soul  is  missed  also.  When  a 
man  is  master  of  his  subject  he  can  watch  the 
effect  of  his  words  on  his  audience,  can  con- 
tract or  expand  his  arguments  and  vary  his 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     217 

illustrations  according  as  he  sees  that  he  is 
holding  or  not  holding  his  audience.  Some 
of  the  happiest  flights  of  a  preacher  are  those 
which  are  born  of  the  occasion,  the  success 
of  which  goes  far  to  atone  for  any  defects  of 
style  there  may  happen  to  be.  The  whole 
history  of  preaching  revivals  points  in  the 
same  direction.  The  appeal  has  always  been 
from  the  scribes  to  the  teacher  who  seems  to 
speak  with  authority.  "I  like  that  man," 
said  a  Canadian  trapper  after  hearing  a  cer- 
tain preacher.  "  He  's  the  first  preacher  I  've 
ever  met  who  could  shoot  without  a  rest." 
This  man's  illustration  was  drawn  from  the 
line  of  his  own  experience.  The  trapper 
who  required  a  rest  for  liis  gun  before  he 
could  fire  would  probably  not  carry  home 
much  game  at  nightfall. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  and  while  every  man 
will  determine  for  himself  on  this  point, 
Mr.  Binney's  greatest  triumphs  in  the  pulpit 
were  those  of  free  speech.  Generally  speak- 
ing, without  a  note  and  with  characteristic 
attitude,  the  forefinger  of  the  right  hand  now 
and  again  laid  upon  the  palm  of  his  left,  he 
made  his  way  along  the  path  he  had  previ- 
ously intended  to  travel.  Sometimes,  for  a 
moment,  he  would  seem  to  hesitate  or  delib- 


218      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

erate,  as  if  casting  about  for  the  best  way  of 
marshalling  his  arguments  or  presenting  his 
thoughts ;  at  other  times  he  rose  on  the  swell 
of  some  great  utterance  or  inspiring  truth, 
and  having  gained  some  lofty  eminence  would 
step  back  and  look  round  upon  his  audience 
as  if  to  see  how  far  he  was  carrying  them 
with  him.  He  has  been  described  as  a  great 
master  of  accent  in  speech.  While  some  men 
run  their  words  along  like  engines  on  a  line 
of  rail,  by  accent  of  voice  and  hand,  which 
has  entrance  into  soul,  he  carried  his  people 
with  him,  and  threw  in  tender  effects  which, 
without  any  mere  artifice  of  emotion,  would 
sometimes  melt  men  to  tears.  Great  in 
delineations  of  character,  he  made  the  men 
and  women  of  Scripture  story  live  and  move 
before  you.  He  seemed  to  carry  his  audience 
to  the  very  heart  of  things,  compelled  them 
to  listen,  and  made  them  feel  that  he  was 
dealing  with  their  deepest,  truest  life.  The 
moral  earnestness  with  which  his  j)reaching 
was  charged  showed  itself  in  the  subjects  he 
chose,  the  manner  of  their  treatment,  and 
the  way  he  brought  them  home  to  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  men;  and  his  appeals  gathered 
into  themselves  all  the  potent  elements  of  the 
sermon  by  which  they  were  preceded. 


PBEACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    219 

One  thing  specially  noticeable  about  Mr. 
Binney's  ministry  was  the  devout  and  ele- 
vated spirit  which  marked  the  prayers  of  the 
sanctuary.  Someone  described  him  as  "a 
devotional  man  talking  intellectually."  Tlie 
author  of  the  "Life  of  Chatterton,''  himself 
a  poet  and  critic,  once  turned  in  to  hear  this 
preacher  in  his  early  London  days,  and  he 
tells  us  he  was  as  much  struck  with  the 
prayers  as  with  the  sermon.  "The  prayer," 
he  says,  "  which  succeeds  the  reading  of  the 
chapter  in  the  Bible  is  eminently  devotional. 
The  voice  of  the  minister  is  deep  and  solemn, 
and  his  manner  that  of  one  who  feels  how 
infinitely  great  is  He  with  whom  he  has  to 
do.  There  is  no  familiarity,  no  bawling,  no 
hurry ;  all  is  calmness,  earnestness,  and  quiet 
supplication."  Mr.  Binney  laid  great  stress 
on  the  importance  of  this  part  of  the  service, 
and  his  people  felt,  many  a  time,  that  he 
seemed  to  carry  them  in  prayer  to  the  very 
gates  of  heaven.  Extempore  prayer  may 
sometimes  suffer  from  the  distempered  mood 
of  the  minister,  but  it  also  gains  by  embody- 
ing the  highest  inspirations  of  the  Spirit  of 
God. 

Let  me  now  pass  from  one  who  was  among 
the  earliest  to  bring  a  living  spirit  into  the 


220      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

English  pulpit  of  the  nineteenth  century,  to 
set  before  you  a  representative  of  modern 
Puritanism,  who  was  certainly  one  of  the 
most  striking  personalities  of  the  century, 
and  who,  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  own  in- 
dividuality made  a  conspicuous  place  for  him- 
self among  the  preachers  of  the  time.  I  refer 
,to  the  late  Mr.  Spurgeon.  He  was,  what 
v^  /  Mr,  Binney  was  not,  a  popular  preaqher, 
"  followed  from  first  to  last  by  thousanxls. 
The  common  people,  as  usual,  came  first, 
but  while  they  remained  they  were  soon 
joined  by  men  of  higher  social  grade.  Pro- 
fessional men,  senatorial  men,  ministers  of 
State  and  peers  of  the  realm  were  to  be  seen 
among  his  audience.  On  the  other  hand, 
some  of  the  cultured  heathen  assailed  him 
relentlessly.  The  weekly  journal  which 
John  Bright  described  as  "the  great  Satur- 
day Reviler,"  made  him  the  perpetual  butt 
of  jibe  and  jeer.  He  simply  smiled  and  said : 
"  Give  me  the  love  of  God  and  the  hatred  of 
the  '  Saturday  Review, '  and  I  shall  be  sure 
to  succeed."  So  he  went  on  his  way,  prov- 
ing, beyond  a  doubt,  that  no  one  can  write  a 
man  down  but  himself. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  inquire  what  is 
the  secret  of  a  success,  admittedly  well  de- 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     221 

served,  and  certainly  unparalleled  in  England 
since  the  days  of  Whitefield  and  Wesley. 
Mr.  Spurgeon's  ecclesiastical  relationships 
cannot  account  for  it,  for  he  began  his  min- 
istry in  London  in  an  obscure  place  of  wor- 
ship belonging  to  one  of  the  straitest  and 
narrowest  of  Baptist  sects;  and  the  congre- 
gation to  which  he  went  had  dwindled  almost 
to  the  point  of  extinction.  Then,  too,  so  far 
as  the  man  himself  was  concerned,  there  was 
nothing  about  his  personal  appearance  to 
account  for  his  success.  His  face,  it  is  true, 
could  light  up  wonderfully  when  he  was 
fairly  under  weigh ;  but  when  he  first  stepped 
to  the  front  of  his  vast  audience  his  appear- 
ance was  that  of  a  man,  short,  stout,  com- 
monplace, and  perfectly  innocent  of  the 
sesthetics  of  dress.  While  his  face,  of  round, 
homely  Saxon  cast,  indicated  a  rude  strength 
of  purpose,  and  dogged  power  of  endurance, 
it  gave  scant  sign  indeed  of  high  intellectual 
expression.  Further,  he  owed  nothing  to 
systematic  academic  training.  He  was  by 
no  means  an  ignorant  man;  for  he  had  been 
an  usher  in  a  school,  knew  something  of 
Latin  and  French,  and  had  diligently  made 
the  most  of  his  opportunities.  Still  those 
opportunities   had  been   scanty  enough.     In 


222      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

metaplij'sics  and  theology  his  mind  was  in  a 
somewhat  crude  condition,  and  his  hick  of 
acquaintance  with  the  original  languages  of 
the  Scriptures  sometimes  led  to  havoc  in  his 
exegesis.  A  public  man  who  went  to  hear 
him  in  his  early  days  attributed  much  of  his 
popularity  to  his  remarkable  voice,  and 
prophesied  that  so  long  as  that  voice  lasted 
the  popularity  would  last.  Yet,  from  all  one 
hears,  Whitefield's  voice  must  have  been  im- 
measurably superior  in  point  of  compass  and 
richness.  Mr.  Spurgeon's  was  a  compara- 
tively level  voice,  its  principal  attributes 
being  distinctness  and  force.  It  took  a  clear, 
sound,  bell-like  ring  along  with  it,  but  it  had 
few  rich  notes  either  of  loftiness  or  tender- 
ness. After  all,  the  mere  fact  that  ten  thou- 
sand people  could  hear  him  when  he  spoke 
does  not  explain  how  he  came  to  attract  ten 
thousand  people  to  hear  him  speak. 

The  explanation  is  to  be  sought  elsewhere. 

;  And,  first  of  all,  it  is  largely  to  be  found  in 

/  the  fact  that  his  way  of  speaking  to  men  was 

\  so  perfectly  natural.     There  was  pathos  and 

humor  in  him,  as  men  have  when  they  talk 

together   in   private  life,  and   his  preaching 

was   as    when  one  man    is   talking  with  his 

neighbor.     No  pulpit  twang  had  he,  none  of 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    223 

the  wearisome  sing-song  by  which  some 
preachers  generate  clerical  sore-throat.  He 
was  as  natural  in  the  pulpit  as  John  Bright 
was  on  the  platform,  and  often  more  racy. 
He  was  what  the  common  people  call_ajbqrn 
preacher;  his  mind  readiTy~Takiiig,,.in  all  he 
saw  and  heard  and  read,  giving  it  out  again 
with  fulness  and  freshness,  and  without  a 
faltering  word. 

Coming  to  the  style  of  the  man,  there  was 
nothing  hackneyed  about  it  even  when  he 
took  a  commonplace  subject.  If  there  is  one 
thought  more  hackneyed  than  another  by 
moralists  and  preachers  it  is  perhaps  that  of 
the  flight  of  time.  But  see  how  this  man 
handles  it:  "Only  a  few  Sabbaths  ago,"  says 
he,  "I  was  talking  to  you  of  Ruth  in  the 
harvest-fields,  and  of  the  heavily-laden  wagon 
that  was  pressed  down  with  sheaves;  and 
now  the  leaves  are  almost  gone;  but  few 
remain  upon  the  trees;  these  frosty  nights 
and  strong  winds  have  swept  the  giants  of 
the  forest  till  their  limbs  are  bare,  and  the 
hoar  frosts  plate  them  with  silver.  Then, 
before  we  shall  have  time  to  burn  the  winter's 
log,  Ave  shall  see  the  snowdrops  and  the 
yellow  crocus  heralding  another  spring !  At 
what   a   rate   we   whirl    along!      Childhood 


224      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

seems  to  travel  in  a  wagon,  but  manhood  at 
express  speed."  There  is  nothing  hackneyed 
or  stilted  about  that.  So,  again,  with  his 
illustrations.  Listen  to  this:  "Have  you 
ever  read  Coleridge's  'Ancient  Mariner'?" 
asks  he.  "I  dare  say  you  have  thought  it 
one  of  the  strangest  imaginations  ever  put 
together,  especially  that  part  where  the  old 
mariner  represents  the  corpses  of  all  the  dead 
men  rising  up  —  all  of  them  dead,  yet  rising 
up  to  manage  the  ship;  dead  men  pulling 
the  ropes,  dead  men  steering,  dead  men 
spreading  the  sails.  I  thought  what  a  strange 
idea  that  was.  But  do  you  know  I  have 
lived  to  see  that  true :  I  have  seen  it  done. 
I  have  gone  into  churches,  and  I  have  seen 
a  dead  man  in  the  pulpit,  and  a  dead  man  as 
a  deacon,  and  a  dead  man  holding  the  plate 
at  the  door,  and  dead  men  sitting  to  hear. 
'  No ! '  says  one,  '  you  cannot  mean  it. '  Yes, 
I  do;  the  men  were  spiritually  dead.  I  have 
seen  the  minister  preaching,  without  a  par- 
ticle of  life,  a  sermon  which  is  only  fresh  in 
the  sense  in  which  a  fish  is  fresh  when  it  has 
been  packed  in  ice.  I  have  seen  the  people 
sit,  and  they  have  listened  as  if  they  had 
been  a  group  of  statues  —  the  chiselled  marble 
would  have  been   as  much   affected   by  the 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    225 

sermon  as  they.  I  have  seen  the  deacons  go 
about  their  business  just  as  orderly,  and  with 
as  much  precision  as  if  they  liad  been  mere 
automatons,  and  not  men  with  liearts  and 
souls  at  all.  Do  you  think  God  will  ever 
bless  a  church  like  that?  Are  we  ever  to 
take  the  kingdom  of  heaven  with  a  troop  of 
dead  men?  Never!  We  want  living  min- 
isters, living  hearers,  living  deacons,  living 
elders;  and  until  we  have  such  men  who 
have  got  the  very  fire  of  life  burning  in  their 
souls,  who  have  got  tongues  of  life  and  eyes 
of  life,  and  souls  of  life,  we  shall  never  see 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  taken  by  storm. 
'  For  the  kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth  vio- 
lence, and  the  violent  take  it  by  force.'  " 

Another  important  element  in  jNIr.  Spur- 
geon's  success  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
speaker  of  superb  English :  a  master  of  that 
Saxon  speech  which  somehow  goes  warm  to 
the  hearts  of  men.  While  the  common 
people  followed  him  in  crowds,  and  heard 
him  gladly,  he  had  no  more  delighted  listener 
or  warmer  personal  friend  than  John  Ruskin, 
the  great  master  of  a  glowing  and  gorgeous 
English  style.  More  than  any  man  I  know 
of  in  this  century,  he  has  shown  us  what  a 
powerful  weapon  noble  English  speech  may 

15 


226      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

be  when  a  man  knows  how  to  use  it.  Be- 
cause of  this  he  is  worthy  of  prolonged  and 
careful  study  on  the  part  of  every  preacher. 
He  had  this  much-to-be-desired  power  of 
racy  English  by  native  endowment,  no  doubt. 
He  had  it  when  he  first  opened  his  lij^s  to 
speak  to  simple  village  folk  in  the  fen-lands 
of  Cambridgeshire.  But,  also,  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  the  power  grew  —  grew  by  deep- 
ening acquaintance  with  the  writings  of  men 
conspicuous  for  the  strength  and  grandeur  of 
their  English  style.  Like  John  Bunyan,  he 
gained  both  the  grandeur  and  the  simplicity 
of  his  English  prose  from  his  English  Bible; 
V,and  also  by  being  much  in  company  with 
writers  like  Bunyan.  There  is  something 
here  worthy  of  every  preacher's  heedful  care. 
The  great  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome  must 
ever  remain  among  our  foremost  instruments 
of  intellectual  culture;  at  the  same  time  a 
broad-minded  and  careful  study  of  our  own 
best  English  writers  must  be  among  the  first 
duties  of  him  who  would  be  a  pleader  with 
men  in  their  English  tongue. 

It  is  but  scant  space  I  have  left  myself 
in  which  to  speak  of  one  other  element 
in  Mr.  Spurgeon's  success,  as  a  preacher 
of   Christ's   Gospel,    without  which,    I  ven- 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    227 

tiire  to  think,  in  spite  of  his  great  gifts,  he 
would  not  have  done  the  work  he  did.  It 
is„that  there„.wiis  profound  truth  in  the  great  \ 
substance  of^Jiis^jteajcJiixigr  and  he  himself  \  <^ 
believeT  that_irutji_sidtli-^]l  .his .  heai't.  His  /^ 
message  embraced  the  great  Catholic  truths 
of  the  Gospel  —  the  yearning  love  of  God 
for  men,  sinful  as  they  are;  the  Incarnation 
of  the  Son  of  God;  the  Atonement  for 
sin  made  by  Christ's  sacrificial  death  upon 
the  cross ;  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
the  conversion  and  upbuilding  of  the  human 
soul.  All  these  truths  and  those  which 
spring  out  of  them  he  held  with  an  unwaver- 
ing grasp.  No  one  could  make  him  believe 
that  the  age  of  the  supernatural  had  passed; 
for  he  boldly  declared  that  the  Gospel  comes 
from  the  supernatural,  is  supernatural,  and 
does  its  appointed  work  in  the  presence  and 
by  the  power  of  the  supernatural.  On  all 
these  subjects  his  mind  was  made  up  past  all 
misgiving.  Forty  years  ago  a  reviewer,  who 
was  not  insensible  to  such  defects  as  Mr. 
Spurgeon  certainly  had,  especially  in  the 
early  years  of  his  career,  wrote  what  may 
still  be  repeated  after  these  forty  years  have 
come  and  gone:  "The  philosophical  pre- 
cision, the  literary  refinements,  the  nice  dis- 


228      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

criminations  between  what  we  may  know  of  a 
doctrine,  and  what  we  may  not,  leaving  us, 
in  tlie  end,  perhaps  scarcely  anything  to 
know  about  —  all  this,  which,  according  to 
some,  is  so  much  needed  by  the  age,  is  Mr. 
Spurgeon's  utter  scorn.  He  is  the  direct 
dogmatic  enunciator  of  the  old  Pauline  truth, 
without  the  slightest  attempt  to  soften  its 
outline,  its  substance,  or  its  results  —  and 
what  has  followed?  Truly,  Providence 
would  seem  once  more  to  have  made  foolish 
the  wisdom  of  this  world.  While  the  gentle- 
men who  know  so  well  how  people  ought  to 
preach  are  left  to  exemplify  their  profound 
lessons  before  empty  benches  and  in  obscure 
corners,  this  young  man  can  point  to  six 
thousand  hearers  every  Sunday,  and  ask  — 
Who,  with  such  a  sight  before  him,  dares 
despair  of  making  the  Gospel  —  the  good  old 
Gospel  —  a  power  in  the  great  heart  of 
humanity?" 


VIII 

REPRESENTATIVE    PREACHERS    OF 
MODERN   PURITANISM 

II.   DR.    R.    W.   DALE 


LECTURE   VIII 

EEPRESEXTATIVE    PREACHEES   OF 
MODERN  PURITANISM 

II.    DR.  R.  W.  DALE 

IN  my  last  lecture  I  called  your  attention 
to  two  men  who  may  be  regarded  as  typi- 
cal representatives  of  the  English  Puritan 
preacher  of  the  nineteenth  century,  — Thomas 
Binney  and  Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon.  I 
pass  now  from  these  to  the  late  Dr.  Dale  of 
Birmingham,  a  preacher  of  whom  a  compe- 
tent witness  has  said  that  "he  had  the  real 
soul  of  the  Puritan  in  him,"  and  that  as  a 
theologian  "  our  generation  has  had  no  abler 
interpreter  of  Evangelical  thought."  We 
may  go  one  step  farther  and  say  that  not 
merely  this  generation  but  this  century  has 
seen  no  abler  man  in  the  ranks  of  the  Eng- 
lish Congregational  Ministry. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  me,  here  and  now, 
to  explain  Dr.  Dale's  methods  of  work  as  a 
preacher,  inasmuch  as  some  years  ago,  as  a 
former  Yale  lecturer,  he  practically  did  this 


232      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

for  himself.  Upon  his  characteristic  qualities 
as  a  man  and  a  minister  I  therefore  do  not 
propose  to  dwell.  But  Dr.  Dale  was  not 
merely  a  preacher;  he  was  also  an  indepen- 
dent and  constructive  theologian,  which,  it  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  say,  all  preachers  are 
not.  As  the  foundation  of  his  preaching, 
there  was  a  strong,  compact,  and  solid  basis  of 
theological  thought  which  gave  real  unity  to 
all  his  teaching.  With  sweat  of  brain  and 
earnest  wrestling  of  soul  he  wrought  out  for 
himself,  from  divine  revelation,  a  doctrinal 
system,  which  he  sought  to  verify  at  every 
step  by  his  own  actual  religious  experience 
and  by  that  of  the  Christian  Church  at  large. 
One  who  had  exceptional  means  of  knowing 
him  tells  us  that  "he  thought  himself  into 
the  mind  of  the  sacred  writers,  taking  his  first 
principle  from  John,  and  working  it  into  a 
theology  by  means  of  terms  and  processes  he 
derived  from  Paul,  so  that  his  theological 
method  was  at  once  Biblical  and  constructive." 
The  important  place  which  theological 
study  should  hold  in  a  preacher's  life  and 
teaching  was  emphasized  early  by  Dr.  Dale 
in  what  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  one 
of  the  greatest  of  his  sermons,  that  which 
he  preached  at   Stratford-on-Avon  in  1864, 


PREACHERS    OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    233 

on  the  occasion  of  the  tercentenary  celebra- 
tion of  Shakespeare's  birth.  The  sermon 
is  entitled  "Genius  the  Gift  of  God."  In 
eloquent  terms  he  spoke  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  blessing  God  conferred  on  the  English 
people  when  he  endowed  their  great  poet  with 
gifts  so  vast  and  so  rare;  and  also  of  how 
much  that  poet  had  done  to  give  to  the  Eng- 
lish tongue  its  force,  its  picturesqueness,  its 
majesty,  splendor,  and  beauty.  But  all  this 
genius  he  seemed  almost  to  covet  for  still 
higher  service.  He  had  sometimes  tried,  he 
said,  to  imagine  what  would  have  been  the 
preciousness  of  that  legacy  which  Shakespeare 
would  have  left  to  the  world  had  his  genius 
been  wholly  devoted  to  illustrate  and  enforce 
religious  truth.  He  maintained  that  the 
highest  ministry  of  all  in  which  the  intellect 
can  be  engaged,  the  ministry  to  which  by  its 
divine  origin  it  is  most  urgently  and  impera- 
tively called,  is  in  direct  connection  with 
religion.  He  held  it  a  crime  against  God  and 
man  to  relegate  the  intellect  to  inferior 
provinces  of  thought  and  to  forbid  or  discour- 
age its  activity  in  the  investigation  and  mas- 
tery of  religious  truth.  For  it  is  in  the 
revelation  of  God  to  man  that  the  human 
mind  finds  the  grandest  materials  for  the  ex- 


234      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

ercise  of  its  energy.  It  seemed  to  liim  that 
the  vague  uncertainty  of  theological  thought 
with  which  some  men  ask  us  to  be  satisfied  is 
virtually  to  cast  dishonor  on  the  dignity  of 
human  nature  and  to  impeach  the  sincerity  of 
divine  revelation.  He  returned  to  this  point 
towards  the  end  of  his  life,  and  in  a  letter  to 
a  friend  said  that  for  years  he  had  felt  that 
the  vagueness  of  thought  which  prevails 
among  intelligent  people  with  regard  to 
Christian  doctrine  is  a  serious  injury  to  the 
vigor  of  religious  life;  and  that  the  injury 
was  all  the  graver  because  of  the  increasing 
precision  with  which  men  are  thinking  about 
natural  phenomena.  In  one  region  of  the  in- 
tellectual life  there  is  granite,  above  it  are 
clouds. 

There  are  those  who  are  afraid  of  dogmatic 
theology.  Dogma  is  a  word  that  scares 
them.  Abusive  epithets  are  so  continually 
being  applied  to  it  that  they  think  they  show 
culture  and  breadth  of  mind  by  keeping  clear 
of  it.  Yet  what  is  dogma,  rightly  looked  at, 
but  the  way  a  sensible  man  has  of  summing 
up  his  knowledge  on  a  given  subject?  The 
necessity  for  dogma  arises  from  that  other 
necessity  there  is  in  the  human  mind  for  con- 
structive movement  and  systematic  thought. 


M 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    235 

There  must  be  some  sort  of  order  in  the  way 
different  parts  of  a  subject  hang  together  in 
the  mind  of  an  active  thinker.  Therefore, 
just  as  there  may  be  a  true  and  constructive 
science  of  the  material  universe,  there  may 
also  be  a  true  and  constructive  dogmatic  the- 
ology, that  is,  a  science  of  the  spiritual  uni- 
verse. Neither  in  the  one  case  nor  the  other 
may  that  science  be  perfectly  complete  and 
absolutely  final.  Natural  science  is  continu- 
ally seeking  to  adjust  itself  more  and  more 
closely  to  the  facts ;  it  is  therefore  no  dispar- 
agement to  spiritual  science,  that  is,  dogmatic 
theology,  to  say  that  it  may  have  to  do  the 
same.  The  facts  in  both  worlds,  natural  and 
spiritual,  remain  ever  the  same,  unchanged 
and  unchangeable,  but  man's  way  of  express- 
ing them  and  setting  them  forth  must  neces- 
sarily change  as  his  knowledge  of  those  facts 
becomes  closer  and  more  accurate.  The 
spiritual  world  with  its  divine  facts,  laws,  and 
proj3esses  is  as  real  as  the  natural  world,  in- 
deed the  two  are  forever  interlacing,  and  if 
the  scientific  study  of  the  natural  world  is  a 
high  and  honorable  pursuit,  so  also  is  the 
scientific  study  of  the  spiritual.  As  men 
who  desire  to  take  life  seriously,  we  must 
give  some  account  of  spiritual  facts  to  our- 


236      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

selves  and  to  others.     There  must  be  an  intel- 
lectual expression  of  the  contents  of  faith. 

Possibly  some  men  reject  dogma  because 
they  dislike  the  facts  with  which  dogma 
deals,  but  also  very  much  of  the  opprobrium 
heaped  upon  it  arises  from  the  attempt  too 
often  made  to  stereotype  in  creeds  for  all 
time,  the  way  some  men  had  of  expressing 
divine  facts  at  some  one  given  time.  The 
attempt  to  stereotype  natural  science  would 
not  succeed.  It  would  be  very  unfortunate 
if  it  did.  So  with  the  science  of  the  spirit- 
ual universe.  While  its  facts  abide  and  are 
eternal,  the  form  of  stating  them  has  changed, 
and  indeed  must  change,  if  it  is  to  have  life 
in  it  and  be  of  any  value.  The  intellectual 
methods  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  Dr.  Dale 
points  out,  governed  the  speculations  of  the 
Schoolmen  as  to  the  invisible  and  spiritual 
universe  just  as  they  governed  the  specula- 
tions of  their  contemporaries  in  their  re- 
searches into  the  visible  and  material  uni- 
verse. And  in  the  interests  of  advancing 
knowledge  those  methods  had  to  be  left 
behind.  So  again,  the  Protestant  attempt  to 
recast  theological  thought  after  the  Reforma- 
tion, while  substantially  sound  and  strong, 
has  undergone  change  and  modification  as  the 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    237 

spiritual  consciousness  of  the  Church  in  com- 
munion with  God  has  entered  more  fully  into 
the  spiritual  heritage  of  truth.  The  men  of 
thirty  and  forty  years  ago  who  urged  us  to  be 
faithful  to  the  theology  of  the  Puritans  were 
hardly  conscious  how  far  they  themselves  had 
travelled  from  the  Puritan  position.  Mr. 
Spurgeon  flattered  himself  to  the  end  of  his 
life  that  he  was  a  sound  Calvinist,  yet  John 
Calvin  was  much  too  great  a  theologian  to 
have  accepted  Mr.  Spurgeon's  way  of  preach- 
ing Calvinism.  As  the  Schoolmen  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  the  Protestants  and  Puri- 
tans of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centu- 
ries thought  and  spoke  in  the  idiom  of  their 
own  time,  Dr.  Dale  contended  so  must  we. 
We  in  our  turn  have  to  give  our  own  account 
of  the  great  objects  of  faith,  to  construct  our 
own  conception  of  them,  to  conceive  of  them 
according  to  our  own  intellectual  methods, 
and  under  our  own  forms  of  thought.  We 
may  not  for  a  moment  let  go  any  of  the  divine 
facts  or  truths  revealed  to  us.  We  dare  not 
modify  any  traditional  Christian  doctrine  to 
conciliate  hostility.  But  neither  are  we  to 
shrink  from  modifying  any  expression  or  tra- 
dition of  the  past  which  misrepresents  the 
eternal   fact.     A  recent  writer  has  forcibly 


238      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

said  that  the  right  thing  to  do  with  dogma  is 
not  to  reject  it  but  to  vitalize  it.  "It  is  a 
poor  thing,"  he  says,  for  example,  "to  preach 
'  Predestination  '  in  such  a  way  as  to  set  men 
wondering  whether  they  are  predestinated  or 
not,  and  which  of  their  neighbors  are.  A 
man  who  inquires  so  is  not  predestinated  very 
much.  What  we  need  is  to  put  men  in  direct 
contact  with  Divine  Power  and  Reality,  to 
make  life  so  serious  to  them  that  they  will 
have  the  feeling  which  first  made  men  throw 
out  this  word  '  Predestination  '  —  the  feeling 
that  they  are  arrested  for  a  divine  purpose, 
and  must  do  a  divine  work.  Predestination 
is  man  interpreting  the  '  must '  of  his  inner 
nature  as  the  eternal  word  and  will  of  God." 
Dr.  Dale  not  only  felt  it  needful  to  work 
out  a  system  of  Christian  doctrine  for  his  own 
intellectual  and  spiritual  requirements,  but 
he  held  it  to  be  a  foremost  part  of  his  duty  to 
preach  sermons  on  Christian  doctrine  to  his 
people.  In  the  preface  to  the  latest  book  he 
himself  issued  from  the  press,  he  tells  us 
that  early  in  his  ministry  some  other  minis- 
ter, in  friendly  fashion,  said  to  him,  "  I  hear 
that  you  are  preaching  doctrinal  sermons  to 
your  congregation;  they  will  not  stand  it." 
To  which  he  replied,  "  They  will  have  to  stand 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    239 

it."  Commenting  upon  this  late  in  life,  he 
admitted  there  was  too  much  of  the  insolent 
self-confidence  of  youth  in  both  the  temper 
and  form  of  his  reply;  at  the  same  time  he 
still  held  that  the  conception  of  the  ministry 
which  it  expressed  was  a  just  one  —  as  far  as 
it  went;  and  it  was  a  conception  which  with 
more  or  less  fidelity  he  had  endeavored  to 
fulfil.  But  while  it  is  true  that  Dr.  Dale  felt 
it  to  be  his  duty  to  preach  doctrinal  sermons 
to  a  miscellaneous  congregation,  it  is  import- 
ant to  remember,  what  Dr.  Fairbairn  j)oints 
out,  that  he  never  could  regard  a  doctrine  as 
a  dogma  which  he  was  bound  to  believe  be- 
cause the  Church  had  formulated  it.  Doc- 
trine, while  shaping  his  experience,  was  also 
verified  by  the  experience  which  it  governed. 
It  may  be  asked,  however.  Is  it  competent  for 
any  man  to  limit  divine  truth  within  the 
bounds  of  his  own  experience  ?  Is  not  this  to 
resolve  Christianity  into  mere  subjective  feel- 
ing? This,  as  Herrmann  saw,  was  the  vice 
of  mysticism,  that  it  disregarded  the  link 
between  the  inner  life  of  the  Christian  and  its 
real  foundation  in  that  which  is  outside  itself, 
and  so  came  to  allow  feelings  which  have 
no  distinct  character  to  usurp  the  place  of 
thoughts  concerning  faith.     Pietism,  by  dis- 


240      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

paraging  intellectual  activity,  as  Dr.  Dale 
himself  plainly  saw,  encourages  a  feeble  relig- 
ious sentimentalism.  He  was  saved  from  that 
not  only  because,  as  Dr.  Fairbairn  says,  his 
nature  was  large  and  rich,  but  because  he  was 
strongly  intellectual,  with  a  reason  that  was 
more  ratiocinative  than  speculative.  There 
was,  to  quote  the  far-seeing  words  of  Herr- 
mann, a  further  and  more  important  safe- 
guard: "The  new  state  of  feeling  into  which 
the  Christian  enters  clings  to  something  richer 
than  itself.  It  needs  an  objective  reality 
which  it  distinguishes  from  its  own  nature. 
Greater  and  higher  than  all  religious  emotion 
within  the  Christian,  there  rises  and  towers 
religious  thought,  which  points  away  beyond 
all  that  we  have  already  felt  and  experienced 
on  to  a  boundless  wealth  which  lies  beyond." 
Thus  while  experience  illumined  and  made 
real  the  truth  of  revelation,  that  truth  guided 
and  enriched  the  experience.  Out  of  mutual 
interaction  came  enlargement  of  thought  and 
life. 

From  what  I  have  said,  you  will  have  gath- 
ered that  Dr.  Dale  made  it  his  habit  to  preach 
doctrinal  sermons,  in  turns  with  sermons  of 
other  sort,  because  he  held  it  to  be  his  first 
and  foremost  duty  to  instruct  his  people  as  to 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    241 

those  great  divine  facts  of  the  spiritual  uni- 
verse which  have  been  revealed  to  us.  He 
felt  it  was  not  enough  to  give  mere  ethical 
teaching  on  the  daily  conduct  of  life.  He  did 
this,  did  it  more  effectively  than  most  preach- 
ers, as  his  published  sermons  remain  to  shew. 
But  he  realized  that  eternity  was  the  solemn 
background  of  time,  and  that  no  life  is  truly 
noble  till  it  is  rooted  in  divine  relationships. 

But  while  setting  forth  the  great  doctrines 
of  revelation  in  his  regular  ministry,  he  did  so 
in  no  merely  technical  or  academic  fashion. 
He  made  doctrinal  preaching  living  by  bring- 
ing it  into  close  connection  with,  and  verify- 
ing it  by,  the  actual  experience  of  living  men. 
This  is  the  one  instructive  thing  about  it  for 
other  preachers.  Let  me,  in  the  briefest  pos- 
sible way,  give  instances  of  this. 

For  example,  while  proclaiming  the  foun- 
dation truth  of  the  Divine  Existence,  he  ex- 
plained the  difference  between  helieving  that 
God  is,  and  hioioing  that  He  is.  The  belief 
may  come  from  parents  and  teachers  or  as  a 
national  tradition.  We  kiww  that  God  is  by 
coming  into  personal  contact  with  Him. 
One  man  remembers  a  summer's  day  when 
the  wonderful  beauty  of  nature  filled  him 
with    exultation    and     delight.       Suddenly 

16 


242      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

through  all  that  he  saw  there  came  the  very 
glory  of  God."  He  knew  that  He  was  there. 
His  presence  and  His  goodness  took  possession 
of  him  and  held  him  for  hours.  Another  man 
comes  to  the  same  knowledge  by  finding  an 
intelligible  order  in  nature,  by  recognizing  a 
mind  not  his,  but  like  his,  b}^  finding  that  he 
can  think  God's  thoughts  after  Him.  Not 
by  reasoning,  but  by  experience  is  God's  ex- 
istence made  certain  to  us.  As  the  material 
world  is  perceived  and  known  by  the  organs 
of  sense,  so  God  is  perceived  and  known  by 
the  organs  of  the  mind.  The  World,  Self, 
God,  —  these  are  the  ultimate  realities ;  and 
each  must  be  known  by  experience,  if  known 
at  all.  So  again  with  the  moral  sense. 
When  a  man  has  done  wrong,  in  the  remorse 
and  wretchedness  which  follow  he  has  to  do 
not  with  a  mere  idea,  but  with  an  awful 
force.  It  is  more  than  a  Power.  It  deals 
with  him  as  a  living  Person  deals  with  a  liv- 
ing person.  Righteousness  is  the  attribute 
of  a  Person  not  of  a  mere  Power;  the  Power 
which  insists  on  Righteousness  must  have  a 
living  Person  behind  it.  God  has  come  to 
him,  —  the  Living  God.  He  knows  there  is 
a  God ;  he  knows  it  for  himself. 

But  more  commonly  the  traditional  belief 


PRE  AC  HERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    243 

in  God's  existence  passes  into  the  immediate 
and  certain  knowledge  of  Him  under  the 
power  of  the  Christian  Gospel,  and  the  mani- 
festation of  the  divine  glory  in  the  earthly- 
history  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  A  man 
becomes  conscious  of  failure,  or  in  other  ways 
is  led  to  the  supreme  life.  There  follows  the 
great  venture  of  faith.  A  cry  goes  up  to 
God  from  the  ver}^  depths  of  the  soul,  a 
cry  of  faltering  trust  and  hope.  The  cry 
is  answered,  sometimes  suddenly,  sometimes 
after  long  delay.  But  whether  earlier  or  later, 
the  answer  comes ;  and  the  man  knows  that 
it  comes  from  the  Living  God.  The  faith  of 
the  Church  in  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord  does 
not  rest  merely  upon  authority,  —  whether  the 
authority  of  councils  or  of  the  original  apos- 
tles. Under  the  illumination  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  as  the  result  of  the  experience  of 
the  Christian  life.  Christian  men,  in  one  gen- 
eration after  another,  see  for  themselves  the 
glory  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord. 

So  again  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Dr.  Dale  said  he  knew  he  was  inter- 
preting the  experience  of  Christian  men  accu- 
rately when  saying  that  we  are  conscious  that 
it  is  in  the  strength  of  a  Divine  Power  that 
we  trust  in  the  infinite  love  of  God  in  Christ 


244      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

for  the  remission  of  sins,  submit  to  His 
authority,  and  rejoice  in  His  grace.  But 
where  there  is  a  Divine  Power  there  must 
always  be  a  Divine  Person;  this  is  not  an 
inference  from  experience,  but  a  part  of 
experience. 

Again  also  when  he  comes  to  the  great  doc- 
trine of  the  Atonement,  he  comes  to  fact  and 
experience.  He  points  out  that  in  spite  of 
the  corruptions  which  have  enfeebled  the 
faith  and  dishonored  the  morals  of  the 
Church,  this  great  truth,  though  often 
obscured,  has  never  been  dislodged  from  its 
place  and  authority  in  Christian  thought. 
Theologians  have  given  varying  and  conflict- 
ing explanations  of  it,  but  its  power  over  the 
hearts  of  the  faithful  has  remained  unbroken. 
That  the  Death  of  Christ  was  a  sacrifice  for 
the  sins  of  the  world,  and  that  through  the 
blood  of  Christ  we  have  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  has  been  verified  in  the  actual  experience 
of  the  Christian  Church.  Nothing  is  more 
real  than  the  sense  of  guilt,  and  when  men 
have  found  no  relief  in  tears  and  sorrow,  or 
from  attempts  to  amend  their  lives,  they  have 
seen  that  Christ  had  died  for  their  sins,  and 
then  the  shadow  broke  and  passed  away ;  the 
light  of   God  shone  upon  them;  they  knew 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     245 

that  they  were  forgiven.  It  is  a  wonderful 
experience,  an  experience  that  seems  impos- 
sible until  it  is  actually  known ;  and  then  the 
reality  of  it  is  one  of  the  great  certainties  of 
life.  The  blessedness  of  the  remission  of  sin 
has  been  verified  in  the  experience  of  Chris- 
tian men  through  sixty  generations. 

In  this  living  way  Dr.  Dale  set  forth  Chris- 
tian doctrine  to  the  living  men  and  women 
who  gathered  round  his  pulpit  from  week  to 
week.  "I  find,"  he  says,  "'the  pillar  and 
ground  of  the  truth  '  in  the  actual  life  of  those 
who  have  received  the  Christian  salvation. 
The  biography  of  saints  is  a  higher  authority 
than  the  decrees  of  councils.  .  .  .  For  me 
the  doctrinal  authority  of  the  Church  lies 
in  the  experience  of  the  Church.  Its  expe- 
rience constitutes  its  authorit}^  —  the  experi- 
ence of  the  commonalty  of  those  who  have 
received  the  Christian  redemption.  .  .  .  The 
actual  experience  of  penitents  and  saints  is 
sacred  to  me ;  when  we  are  in  immediate  con- 
tact with  the  divine  life  of  man,  we  are  in 
contact  with  the  presence  and  power  of  the 
Spirit  of  God.  The  '  Confessions  '  of  Augus- 
tine are  of  more  authority  than  his  theolog- 
ical treatises ;  Bunyan's  '  Grace  Abounding ' 
than  Calvin's  '  Institutes.'     I  believe  in  the 


246       PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

inspiration  of  the   Churcli,  and  I  find  that 
inspiration  in  its  life." 

And  now  let  us  pass  from  substance  to  form 
and  style.  Dr.  Fairbairn  has  said  that  Dr. 
Dale's  spoken  discourse  recalled  the  heroic 
age  of  the  English  sermon.  This  spoken 
discourse,  so  far  as  style  is  concerned,  was 
largely  influenced  by  that  of  Edmund  Burke. 
From  Dale's  biography  we  learn  that  his  ad- 
miration for  Burke,  which  began  at  college, 
lasted  on  till  his  latest  years.  When  sleep- 
less nights  were  upon  him,  he  had  always  a 
pile  of  books  by  his  bedside,  and  invariably  a 
volume  or  two  of  Burke  might  be  found 
among  them.  Other  books  came  and  went, 
but  Burke  remained  a  faithful  friend  not  to 
be  dispossessed.  In  view  of  this  fact,  it  is 
curious  to  notice  how  many  points  of  similar- 
ity there  were  between  the  two  men.  Many 
of  the  things  said  by  Hazlitt  and  John  Mor- 
ley  about  Burke  might  be  said  with  almost 
equal  truth  about  Dr.  Dale.  Hazlitt,  com- 
paring Burke  with  his  great  contemporary 
the  Earl  of  Chatham,  says  that  while  Chat- 
ham's wisdom  was  altogether  plain  and  prac- 
tical, Burke's  was  profound  and  contempla- 
tive; while  Chatham  led  men  to  act,  Burke 
made  them  think  ;  that  while  Chatham's  elo- 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    247 

quence  roused  the  multitude  and  enabled  him 
to  wield  their  physical  energy  as  he  pleased, 
Burke's  carried  conviction  into  the  mind  of 
the  retired  and  lonely  student ;  and  that  while 
Chatham  supplied  his  hearers  with  motives 
to  immediate  action,  Burke  furnished  them 
with  reasons  for  action,  which  might  have  little 
effect  upon  them  at  the  time,  but  for  which 
they  would  be  wiser  and  better  all  their  lives 
after.  In  short,  if  Burke  did  not  produce  the 
same  effects  on  ordinary  minds  as  some  others 
have  done,  it  was  not  from  want  of  power, 
but  because  his  subjects,  his  ideas,  and  his 
arguments  w^ere  less  common.  John  Morley, 
too,  in  his  "Life  of  Burke,"  says  that  he 
combined  his  thoughts  and  knowledge  in 
propositions  of  wisdom  so  weighty  and  strong 
that  the  minds  of  ordinary  hearers  were  not 
on  the  instant  prepared  for  them.  Else- 
where also  he  says  that  in  the  coolest  and 
dryest  of  Burke's  writings  there  is  the  mark 
of  greatness,  of  grasp,  of  comprehension ;  that 
he  had  the  style  of  his  subjects,  the  ampli- 
tude, the  weightiness,  the  grandeur  proper  to 
a  man  dealing  with  imperial  themes,  —  the 
freedom  of  nations,  the  justice  of  rulers,  the 
fortunes  of  great  societies,  the  sacredness  of 
law. 


248      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

If  we  pass  over  from  the  domain  of  political 
philosophy  to  that  of  theology,  the  substance 
of  Avhat  is  here  said  about  Burke  might  be 
applied  without  reserve  to  Dr.  Dale.  Upon 
all  his  best  work,  too,  there  is  the  mark  of 
greatness,  of  grasp  and  comprehension;  and 
no  one  can  read  the  books  he  has  left  us  with- 
out feeling  that  he  had  the  style  of  his  sub- 
jects, —  the  amplitude,  the  weightiness,  the 
grandeur  proper  to  a  man  dealing  with  great 
and  sacred  themes.  It  is  because  he  is  such 
an  admirable  examj)le  of  literary  style,  be- 
cause his  sermons  were  literature  rather  than 
sermons,  that  I  wish  to  make  use  of  him  to 
raise  a  very  practical  and  important  question 
of  interest  to  all  preachers.  The  question  is 
this:  Even  if  a  man  can  attain  to  a  very 
high  degree  of  excellence  in  a  purely  literary 
style,  is  it  the  most  effective  form  of  pulpit 
address  ?  May  it  not  be  that  the  very  quali- 
ties which  are  excellencies  in  literature  may 
prove  drawbacks  to  spoken  discourse?  Al- 
most the  same  things  have  been  said  of  both 
these  men.  Hazlitt  was  of  opinion  that 
Burke's  writings  are  better  than  his  speeches, 
and  that  indeed  his  speeches  are  writings. 
Similarly  Dr.  Fairbairn  says  that  Dr.  Dale's 
words,    "though   written   to  be   spoken,  are 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    249 

even  more  fitted  to  be  read  than  to  be  heard; 
for  his  books  are  as  firm  in  texture,  as 
weighty  in  matter,  as  vigorous  in  expression 
as  the  concentrated  thought  of  a  strong  man 
could  make  them."  So  far  as  public  speech 
is  concerned,  how  far  may  this  compact  liter- 
ary style  be  said  to  be  a  success?  Let  us 
take  first  the  one  man  and  then  the  other  for 
the  purpose  of  this  inquiry. 

John  Morley,  as  his  latest  biographer,  is  of 
opinion  that  though  as  an  orator  Burke  was 
transcendent,  yet  in  that  immediate  influence 
upon  his  hearers  which  is  commonly  sup- 
posed to  be  the  mark  of  oratorical  success,  all 
the  evidence  is  that  he  generally  failed.  Per- 
haps the  greatest  speech  he  ever  made  was  that 
on  conciliation  with  America:  the  wisest  in 
its  temper,  the  most  closely  logical  in  its 
reasoning,  the  amplest  in  its  appropriate 
topics,  the  most  generous  and  conciliating  in 
the  substance  of  its  appeals.  Yet,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  Erskine,  who  was  in  the  House  when 
it  was  delivered,  said  that  it  drove  everybody 
away,  including  people  who,  when  they  came 
to  read  it,  read  it  over  and  over  again,  and 
could  hardly  think  of  anything  else.  Burke 
is  held  forth  as  a  memorable  instance  of  more 
than  adequate  means  of  commanding  success 


250      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

resulting  in  a  very  inadequate  share  of  it. 
The  greatest  political  philosopher  of  his  day, 
he  yet  commanded  no  adherents ;  the  greatest 
orator,  he  yet  commanded  no  converts,  and 
could  scarce  command  an  audience.  He  was 
the  best-informed  man  in  Parliament,  the 
most  exact  and  ready  in  his  information.  In 
addition,  he  had  the  means  of  pleasing  as  well 
as  convincing;  for  his  language  was  choice 
and  classical  and  copiously  various,  while 
imagery  the  most  bountiful  and  most  beauti- 
ful set  off  his  homeliest  wares.  Yet  we  are 
told  that  he  was  tiresome,  that  his  name  passed 
into  a  parliamentary  proverb,  and  that  the 
signal  for  his  rising  to  speak  was  the  signal 
for  his  audience  to  quit  their  benches.  It  is 
clear  from  this  conspicuous  instance  that 
literature  and  spoken  discourse  are  not  quite 
the  same  thing.  The  spoken  discourse  meant 
to  be  heard  and  the  written  composition  in- 
tended to  be  read,  should  be  prepared  on 
widely  different  lines.  Otherwise  such  qual- 
ities as  profundity  of  thought,  closeness  and 
consecutiveness  of  reasoning,  elaborated  with 
refinement  and  beauty  of  style,  may  seriously 
mar  the  effectiveness  of  what  is  addressed  to 
the  ear.  For  if  a  man  who  is  reading  a  book 
cannot  quite   follow  the  writer's   argument, 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    251 

he  can  turn  back  and  go  over  the  paragraph 
again.  But  the  man  who  is  hearing  a  speech 
or  a  sermon  must  understand  it  at  the  first 
hearing  or  not  at  all.  It  has  been  well  said 
that  an  average  audience  cannot  be  fed  with 
intellectual  pemmican.  It  is  a  form  of  food 
too  concentrated  for  general  use.  Therefore 
what  is  tiresome  in  a  book  may  be  desirable 
in  a  sermon.  Without  ceasing  to  be  viva- 
cious and  interesting,  the  argument  may  pro- 
ceed at  somewhat  slower  pace;  the  same 
thought  may  be  presented  in  varied  language 
and  diversified  aspects;  and  there  is  larger 
room  for  the  use  of  pictorial  forms  and  famil- 
iar illustrations.  The  speaker  should  make 
sure  as  he  goes  along  not  only  that  the  ideas 
are  there,  but  that  they  are  presented  in  the 
way  best  calculated  to  strike  and  tell. 

In  the  case  of  Dr.  Dale,  the  admirable  biog- 
raphy given  us  by  his  son  deals  with  this 
question  of  his  style  quite  frankly,  and,  so  far 
as  preachers  are  concerned,  seems  to  me  one 
of  the  most  interesting  and  instructive  parts 
of  the  book.  In  a  footnote  to  one  of  the 
pages  a  portion  of  a  letter  is  quoted  from  one 
of  Dr.  Dale's  most  intelligent  hearers,  in 
which  the  writer  says :  "  In  my  own  estima- 
tion  he  always   ranked   higher  as  a  teacher 


252      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

than  a  preacher  of  the  truth.  If  I  read  a  ser- 
mon which  I  had  previously  heard  him 
preach,  it  always  proved  superior  to  what  was 
expected.  The  delivery  had  too  little  variety 
of  tone,  and  was  too  impassioned,  as  a  rule, 
and  until  his  later  years  was  destitute  of 
pathos."  The  defects  in  delivery,  this  gen- 
tleman points  out,  may  be  traced,  I  think,  to 
Dr.  Dale's  style  of  composition.  A  close, 
compact,  and  weighty  style  of  writing  leads 
almost  necessarily  to  monotony  of  delivery 
and  lack  of  pathos.  It  leaves  too  little  room 
for  X)lay  of  tone  and  feeling. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  inferred  from  what 
has  been  said  that  Dr.  Dale  did  not  often 
produce  almost  sublime  effects  even  with  this 
condensed  literary  style  of  his.  It  is  now 
thirty  years  ago,  but  I  vividly  remember  the 
profound  impression  created  by  his  address  on 
"Christ  and  the  Controversies  of  Christen- 
dom," delivered  from  the  Chair  of  the  Con- 
gregational Union.  A  friend  of  mine  also 
who  heard  him  preach  his  great  sermon  on 
"The  Theology  of  John  Wesley,"  in  connec- 
tion with  the  celebration  of  the  centenary  of 
John  Wesley's  death,  told  me  that  the  effect 
of  the  sermon  upon  that  great  audience  was, 
at  certain  points,  simply  overwhelming.     It 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    253 

seemed  as  if  the  people  would  rise  to  their 
feet  and  give  vent  to  their  feelings  in  excited 
acclaim.  Of  course  the  occasion  was  special, 
and  so  was  the  audience.  Then,  too,  the 
more  abstract  parts  of  the  sermon  were  broken 
up  by  passages  of  historical  narrative,  in 
addition  to  which  there  was  much  that  was 
concrete  in  the  setting  forth  of  the  religious 
experience  of  the  Founder  of  Methodism.  It 
will  be  seen  at  once  that  the  ordinary  condi- 
tions of  a  Sunday  after  Sunday  ministry  are 
necessarily  different  from  those  of  a  special 
service  such  as  I  have  referred  to.  And  while 
no  one  can  doubt  for  a  moment  that  Dr. 
Dale's  regular  ministrations  among  his  own 
people  were  effective  and  instructive  in  a  high 
degree  to  many  of  his  hearers,  he  himself 
seems  to  have  felt  that  the  elaborate  literary 
style  he  had  acquired,  and  which  had  become 
part  of  himself,  and  which  has  made  his 
books  so  valued  a  possession  to  the  Church 
of  God,  was,  to  some  extent,  a  drawback  to 
his  usefulness  as  a  preacher.  His  self- 
revelations  on  this  point,  as  given  in  his  biog- 
raphy, seem  to  me  very  instructive. 

In  a  letter  to  his  colleague  and  senior,  the 
Rev.  John  Angell  James,  written  some  three 
years  after  his  settlement  in  Birmingham,  he 


254      PURITAN  PREACH INCx   IN  ENGLAND 

says :  "  The  present  church  and  congregatiop 
are  on  the  whole,  I  believe,  more  than  satis- 
fied with  my  ministry.  Many  are  personally 
attached  to  me  and  believe  that  they  derive 
strength  and  instruction  from  my  ministry. 
.  .  .  On  the  other  hand :  but  twelve  or  fifteen 
months  ago  there  was  very  considerable  dis- 
satisfaction on  the  part  of  the  wisest,  strong- 
est, and  best  people  in  the  Church,  occasioned 
by  my  preaching  doctrines  which  I  still  hold, 
and  by  the  influence  on  my  ministry  of  men- 
tal and  moral  habits  too  deeply  rooted  ever 
to  be  wholly  destroyed." 

Farther  on  in  the  same  letter  he  confides  to 
Mr.  James  that  his  most  cherished  ambition 
had  been  to  gather  a  congregation  of  his  own 
from  the  artisan  class,  and  he  says:  "Sadly 
but  slowly,  I  have  come  to  the  conviction 
that  I  cannot  do  it.  My  preaching  must 
always  be  to  a  large  extent  speculative  and 
doctrinal.  To  reconstruct  one's  mind  and 
completely  transform  one's  habits  is  hard, 
almost  an  impossible  task.  Such  men  as  Mr. 
Beaumont  —  whose  head  appears  to  me  to  be 
one  of  the  finest  I  ever  met  with  —  complained 
that  it  was  hard  work  to  follow  my  sermons 
on  '  Romans. '  Wherever  I  go,  I  must  strive 
against  the  excessive  tendency  to  abstractions 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    255 

by  which  my  preaching  must  have  been  char- 
acterized for  such  a  man  to  speak  so  of  it." 

Tliirty  years  later  circumstances  led  to  his 
returning  to  the  subject  again.  The  occasion 
was  this:  there  had  been  a  Church  Fellow- 
ship Conference  in  his  congregation,  at  which 
one  of  the  members  read  a  paper  offering  sug- 
gestions as  to  what  could  be  done  to  contribute 
to  the  strength  and  efficiency  of  their  Church 
life.  He  began  with  the  pulpit,  and  the  con- 
versation at  which  Dr.  Dale  was  present  was 
very  much  arrested  at  this  first  part  of  the 
paper.  Kindness  was  the  dominant  element 
of  the  criticism  offered,  and  it  was  cheerfully 
granted  that  their  minister's  sermons  had  in- 
tellectual, literary,  and  spiritual  qualities 
which  commanded  the  sympathy  and  grati- 
tude of  the  best  and  most  cultivated  of  his 
hearers.  At  the  same  time  it  was  urged  by 
several  that  Dr.  Dale's  preaching  moved  at  a 
height  —  intellectual  and  spiritual  —  far  above 
that  of  the  congregation  generally. 

This  conference  took  place  a  short  time 
before  he  left  home  for  quiet  sojourn  at  his 
country  house  by  the  sea.  He  now  for  the 
first  time  began  to  keep  a  diary  in  which  to 
write  his  thoughts  about  himself  and  his 
work,    and   this    is   what  he  says   as  to  the 


256      PURITAX  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

course  of  the  conversation  at  the  Church  Con- 
ference in  question:  "I  have  been  thinking 
much,  and  with  much  concern  about  my 
preaching.  It  has  a  fatal  defect.  It  is 
wanting  in  an  element  which  is  indispensable 
to  real  success.  I  do  not  think  that  I  should 
state  the  exact  truth  if  I  said  that  I  was  not 
anxious  for  the  conversion  and  perfection 
of  individual  men,  and  cared  only  for  setting 
forth  the  truth.  But  I  fear  that  the  truth 
occupies  too  large  a  place  in  my  thought, 
and  that  I  have  been  too  much  occupied 
with  the  instrument  —  the  divine  instrument 
—  for  effecting  the  ends  of  the  ministry." 

On  this  important  point  of  effectively  get- 
ting hold  of  the  people  he  says  further:  "I 
felt  rather  strongly  towards  the  close  of  last 
year  that  in  one  respect  among  others  my 
ministry  —  especially  of  late  years  —  had  been 
gravely  defective.  I  have  striven  to  press 
home  upon  men  and  to  illustrate  the  very 
central  contents  of  Christ's  Gospel;  but  I 
have  not  recognized  practically  the  obligation 
to  use  in  preaching  all  those  secondary  powers 
which  contribute  to  create  and  sustain  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  interest  in  preaching. 
The  more  strenuous  intellectual  effort  in 
order  to  make  truth  clear,  and  put  it  strongly, 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    257 

has  not  been  neglected;  but  there  has  not 
been  the  legitimate  use,  either  in  the  choice 
of  subjects  or  their  treatment,  of  those  ele- 
ments which  are  of  a  rhetorical  character, 
and  which  raise  the  audience  into  a  condition 
which  is  perhaps  friendly  to  the  reception 
of  Christian  truth.  I  have  a  dread  of  aim- 
ing at  the  '  popular '  method  of  treatment, 
arising  from  a  dread  of  aiming  at  '  popu- 
larity, '  but  the  two  aims  are  wholly  distinct, 
and  it  has  been  a  fault  not  to  aim  at  the 
first." 

Yet  again  he  has  a  significant  sentence  or 
two  in  reference  to  his  style.  He  says: 
"The  word  which  has  been  often  used  to 
denote  what  critics  regarded  as  the  excel- 
lence of  my  preaching  and  speaking  really 
suggested  the  qualities  in  which  both  had 
been  defective,  and  the  preaching  more  than 
the  speaking  —  '  stateliness.^  That  is  not  the 
characteristic  of  effective  preaching;  and  it 
suggests  a  whole  set  of  intellectual,  ethical, 
and  spiritual  elements  which  account  for 
failure." 

So  we  come  to  this:  the  lesson  other 
preachers  may  learn  from  Dr.  Dale's  self- 
revelations  is  that  stateliness  of  style,  elaborate 
literary  finish,  even  in  the  hands  of  a  master, 

17 


258      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

is  not  the  most  effective  style  for  the  pulpit. 
That  which  may  make  a  man's  work  good  as 
literature  may  mar  it  for  spoken  discourse. 
At  the  same  time  it  does  not  follow,  on  the 
other  hand,  because  a  public  speaker  had 
better  not  put  on  the  stiff  brocade  of  stateli- 
ness,  that  he  must  needs  fall  into  a  style 
loose  and  slipshod.  Some  of  the  greatest 
masters  of  speech  sufficiently  prove  the 
contrary.  John  Bright's  speeches,  for  in- 
stance, have,  by  some  of  the  ablest  judges, 
been  admitted  to  be  among  the  noblest  exam- 
ples of  oratory  in  our  time ;  yet  though  often 
characterized  by  eloquence  and  even  gran- 
deur, no  one  would  say  they  had  the  defect 
and  drawback  of  stateliness;  and  certainly 
they  were  never  loose  or  slipshod.  They 
were  never  below  the  dignity  or  the  import- 
ance of  the  subject  on  the  one  hand ;  and  they 
never  overstrained  the  minds  of  the  audience 
on  the  other.  There  were  familiar  passages 
which  gave  a  sense  of  rest  to  the  hearer,  and 
also  passages  which  at  times  bore  him  along 
on  the  current  of  strong  emotion.  Variety, 
unexpectedness,  interest,  instruction  were  so 
blended  with  convincing  argument,  touching 
pathos,  and  stirring  appeal,  that  the  audi- 
ence were  only  sorry  at  the  end  that  all  was 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    259 

over.  This  leads  me  to  say,  in  conclusion, 
that  for  preachers  such  speeches  are  better 
models  of  style  than  the  most  stately  sermons, 
or  the  most  elaborate  compositions  of  the 
great  masters  in  literature. 


IX 


REPRESENTATIVE    PREACHERS    OF 
MODERN  PURITANISM 

m.  DR.   ALEXANDER  MACLAREN 


LECTURE   IX 

KEPRESENTATIVE    PREACHERS   OF 
MODERN   PURITANISM 

III.    DR.    ALEXANDER   MACLAREN 

THE  three  preachers  I  have  already- 
brought  to  your  notice,  as  typical  re- 
presentatives of  Modern  Puritanism  in  our 
own  century,  have  all  passed  from  the  ranks 
of  the  living  to  the  higher  service.  In  this 
concluding  lecture  I  should  like  to  set  before 
you  one  man  in  the  English  pulpit  of  to-day, 
still  spared  to  us,  —  long  may  he  be  spared,  — 
whose  career  as  a  minister  and  whose  methods 
as  a  preacher  seem  to  me  more  than  usually 
suggestive  to  younger  men.  I  refer  to  Dr. 
Alexander  Maclaren  of  Manchester,  whose 
sermons  are,  I  believe,  almost  as  well  known 
in  America  as  they  are  in  England.  It  so 
happens  that  before  going  to  my  present 
pastorate  in  Bedford  I  was,  for  six  years  of 
his  Manchester  life,  minister  of  another 
church  in  the  same  city,  and  am  therefore 
able,  from  personal  knowledge  to  some  extent, 


264      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

to  speak  of  the  beginnings  of  his  work  in  the 
sphere  he  has  served  and  adorned  so  long. 
From  1858  to  the  present  time,  a  period  of 
more  than  forty  years,  his  intellectual  and 
spiritual  influence  as  a  preacher,  in  one  of 
the  foremost  of  English  cities,  has  never 
wavered  or  waned. 

I  hesitate  to  apply  the  word  "  popularity  " 
in  his  case  simply  because  it  is  an  equivocal 
word  and  has  come  to  be  applied  to  men  of 
whose  methods  one  cannot  always  think  with 
pleasure.  We  may,  however,  use  it  in  Dr. 
Maclaren's  case  in  the  noblest  sense,  for  his 
popularity  is  based  upon  solid  and  lasting 
foundations,  has  been  won  by  legitimate 
means,  and  is  such  as  all  good  men  can  un- 
feignedly  rejoice  over.  He  instinctively 
shrinks  from  everything  that  may  be  called 
playing  to  the  gallery,  and  declines  to  lower 
his  own  ideal  for  the  sake  of  securing  the 
favor  of  his  audience.  His  unbroken  career 
as  a  minister  for  more  than  half  a  century, 
his  marvellous  instructive  and  incisive  power 
as  a  preacher,  make  him  and  his  method  of 
more  than  ordinary  interest  to  those  whose 
vocation  is  to  be  that  of  the  preacher.  Let 
me  try  to  show  what  we  may  learn  from  him. 

In  1846,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty,  Alex- 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    265 

ander  Maclaren  went  from  college  to  be  min- 
ister of  a  comparatively  small  congregation 
on  a  very  modest  stipend  in  the  town  of 
Southampton.  There  is  this  to  be  noted, 
that  though  the  congregation  was  small  q,t 
starting,  he  felt  it  to  be  worthy  of  the  best 
he  could  give  to  it.  He  held  faithfully  and 
tenaciously  to  his  work,  and  there  is  no  better 
way  of  turning  a  small  place  into  a  large  one 
than  that  of  making  the  most  of  it  and  doing 
your  best  to  it  while  you  are  in  it.  He  occa- 
sionally took  up  work  aside  from  his  main 
line  of  service.  During  that  first  pastorate 
he  found  time  to  lecture  to  the  general  public 
of  the  town  on  such  subjects  as  "  John  Mil- 
ton's Prose  Writings,"  "Martin  Luther," 
"John  Knox,"  "The  Covenanters  of  Scot- 
land," "Realized  Utopias,"  and  "The  Wis- 
dom of  Boldness."  But  he  never  neglected 
the  pulpit  for  the  lecture  hall  or  the  plat- 
form. First  of  all,  and  above  all  things 
else,  he  was  a  preacher  of  the  Eternal  Word. 
The  survivors  of  his  Southampton  congre- 
gation, while  willing  to  admit  that  he  is  more 
forceful  and  more  cultured  in  the  'nineties 
than  he  was  in  the  'fifties,  still  contend  that 
he  has  never  reached  higher  levels  than  he 
frequently  did  in  the  days  when  he  was  their 


266      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

minister.  The  result  of  honest,  steadfast, 
painstaking  work  in  that  early  pastorate  was 
such  that  at  the  end  of  twelve  years  he  left 
at  Southampton  a  congregation  which  filled 
the  church  building;  and  he  took  with  him 
to  Manchester  an  established  reputation  as 
one  of  the  ablest,  most  interesting,  and  most 
instructive  of  Nonconformist  preachers. 

This  preliminary  word  about  Dr.  Maclaren 
will  probably  make  you  willing  to  know  more 
about  his  style  of  preaching  and  his  methods 
of  work.  Let  us  begin  with  his  method  of 
preparation  first,  and,  of  course,  on  this  he 
himself  can  give  us  the  most  reliable  informa- 
tion. He  says :  "  I  began  my  ministry  with 
the  resolution  that  I  would  not  write  sermons, 
but  would  think  and  feel  them,  and  I  have 
stuck  to  it  ever  since.  It  costs  quite  as  much 
time  in  preparation  as  writing,  and  a  far 
greater  expenditure  of  nervous  energy  in  de- 
livery ;  but  I  am  sure  that  it  is  best  for  me, 
and  equally  sure  that  everybody  has  to  find 
out  his  own  way."  Going  more  into  detail 
he  says :  "  I  write  my  sermons  in  part.  The 
amount  of  written  matter  varies.  When  I 
can,  I  like  to  write  a  couple  of  sentences  or 
so  of  introduction,  in  order  to  get  a  fair  start, 
and  for  the  rest  I  content  myself  with  jot- 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    267 

tings,  fragmentary  hints  of  a  word  or  two 
each,  interspersed  here  and  there  with  a  fully 
written  sentence.  Illustrations  and  meta- 
phors I  never  write.  A  word  suffices  for 
them.  If  I  have  '  heads  '  I  word  these  care- 
fully, and  I  like  to  write  the  closing  sen- 
tences. That  is  my  ideal,  a  sufficiently 
scrappy  one  you  will  think,  but  I  seldom 
attain  to  it,  and  am  most  frequently  obliged 
to  preach  with  much  less  preparation.  The 
amount  written  varies  from  about  six  or  seven 
pages  of  ordinary  note  paper  —  widely  written 
into  short  lines,  each  line  only  holding  a 
word  or  two  —  to  the  barest  skeleton,  that 
would  go  in  half  a  page.  I  do  not  adhere  to 
what  is  written,  as  there  is  very  little  of  it 
sufficiently  consecutive.  I  make  no  attempt 
to  reproduce  more  than  the  general  course  of 
thought,  and  constantly  find  that  the  best 
bits  of  my  sermon  make  themselves  in  preach- 
ing. I  do  adhere  to  my  introductory  sen- 
tences, which  serve  to  shove  me  off  into  deep 
water;  but  beyond  that,  I  let  the  moment 
shape  the  thing.  Expressions  I  do  not  pre- 
pare. If  I  can  get  the  fire  alight,  that  is 
what  I  care  for  most." 

Such   is   Dr.  Maclaren's   own  account   of 
himself.     Probably  young   beginners  would 


268      PURITAN  PRE  ACE  IN  G  IN  ENGLAND 

be  afraid  to  trust  themselves  to  such  daring 
methods  as  these  at  first,  just  as  young 
swimmers  would  be  afraid  to  trust  themselves 
in  deep  waters  at  the  start.  Even  in  the  case 
of  Dr.  Maclaren  himself,  one  who  has  long 
known  him,  tells  us  that  in  his  earlier  time 
his  fastidiousness  in  the  choice  of  words  led 
often  to  long  pauses,  which  lasted  till  he 
found  fitting  expression  for  his  thought  and 
that  the  refusal  to  accept  any  but  the  best 
language  in  which  to  clothe  his  ideas  goes  far 
to  explain  his  skill  in  the  use  of  the  choicest 
English.  Further,  that  his  mode  of  prepa- 
ration had  this  effect  sometimes,  that  his 
material  did  not  always  last  as  long  as  he 
expected.  In  such  cases,  when  his  wool  was 
done,  he  had  the  courage  to  leave  off  spin- 
ning. He  would  never  condescend  to  empty 
talk  merely  for  the  sake  of  filling  up  what 
has  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  canonical 
time.  He  has  been  known  to  sit  down  at  the 
end  of  twelve  minutes,  simply  remarking 
that  he  had  no  more  to  say.  And  I  do  not 
know  why  a  minister  should  go  on  talking 
when  he  has  no  more  to  say,  though  there 
are  some  ministers  who  do. 

And  now  let  us  look  still  more  closely  into 
Dr.  Maclaren's  methods,  and  ascertain  if  we 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    269 

can  the  secret  of  his  substantial  and  long- 
continued  success.  "We  shall  have  to  assume, 
as  taken  for  granted,  very  much  of  personal 
sort,  —  his  natural  endowment,  his  keen  intel- 
lect, and  that  intense  nervous  force  which 
quickens  and  intensifies  all  his  thinking  and 
speaking.  These  are  the  gifts  from  Heaven, 
the  sovereign  bestowal  with  which  he  started 
life.  Every  man  hath  his  own  proper  gift,  of 
which  we  say  he  hath  nothing  which  he  hath 
not  received,  and  of  which  it  is  true  that  "  a 
man's  gift  maketh  room  for  him."  All  this, 
I  say,  we  take  for  granted,  and  we  are  now 
concerned  rather  with  the  use  the  man  has 
made  of  the  gifts  with  which  he  set  out  in  life. 
In  the  forefront  of  the  causes  of  Dr.  Mac- 
laren's  success  as  a  preacher,  I  should  be 
disposed  to  place  the  fact  that  his  teaching 
is  firmly  based  upon  and  is  a  careful  exposi- 
tion of  the  revelation  God  has  given  to  us  in 
the  Scriptures.  Beyond  most  men,  he  seems 
to  have  resolved  that  his  one  mission  shall  be 
to  make  clear  to  men's  understandings,  and  to 
bring  home  to  men's  hearts,  the  mind  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  as  given  to  us  in  the  "Word  of 
God.  All  through  his  public  life  he  has  con- 
tinued to  be  a  careful  student  of  the  original 
languages    of    Scripture,    and    his    popular 


270      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

teaching  is  based  upon  an  accurate  examina- 
tion of  the  grammatical  structure  of  every 
text  he  takes.  The  text  is  never,  used  as  a 
mere  motto  for  the  sermon,  but  the  sermon  is 
an  exact  exposition  of  the  text.  The  context 
is  taken  into  careful  account;  each  word  has 
its  due  place  in  arriving  at  the  meaning  of 
the  whole;  and  the  niceties  of  distinction 
between  the  different  tenses  of  the  verb  are 
duly  recognized.  Yet  all  this  takes  place  in 
no  mere  pedantic  fashion.  The  preacher  is 
no  slave  to  grammar  and  lexicon ;  but  when 
he  has  laid  his  foundation  in  absolute  verity, 
the  superstructure  raised  thereupon  is  in- 
stinct with  life  and  soul.  Every  man  who 
listens  to  him  may  feel  quite  sure  that  the 
meaning  he  gives  is,  so  far  as  he  can  find  it, 
honestly  brought  out  of  Scripture  and  not 
unlawfully  thrust  into  it.  If  he  ever  takes 
a  text  simply  by  way  of  accommodation, 
which  he  very  rarely  does,  he  frankly  tells  his 
audience  that  he  is  doing  so,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  seems  half-disposed  to  apologize  for 
the  fact.  On  one  occasion,  for  example,  he 
took  for  the  subject  of  his  sermon  the  cham- 
bers of  imagery  spoken  of  by  the  prophet 
Ezekiel,  and  started  by  saying :  "  Now  I  take 
this  text  in  a  meaning  which  the  prophet  had 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     271 

no  intention  to  put  on  it.  I  do  not  often  do 
that  with  my  texts,  and  when  I  do  I  like  to 
confess  frankly  that  I  am  doing  it.  And  so 
I  take  the  words  as  a  kind  of  symbol  which 
may  help  to  put  into,  perhaps,  a  picturesque 
and  more  striking  form  some  very  familiar 
and  homely  truths."  After  thus  frankly 
putting  himself  right  with  his  audience,  he 
then  proceeded  to  use  Ezekiel's  vision  as 
symbolizing  the  dark  painted  chamber  in 
men's  hearts,  the  idolatries  that  go  on  there, 
and  the  way  that  Heaven's  light  is  sometimes 
flashed  into  the  midst  of  these  idolatries.  He 
seems  to  hold  Scripture  as  much  too  sacred 
a  thing  to  be  used  merely  for  popular  effect, 
or  the  display  of  oratory.  I  cannot  conceive 
of  him  making  use  of  it  for  purposes  of  per- 
sonal vanity  by  showing  how  cleverly  he  can 
bring  out  a  meaning  from  an  obscure  text 
which  no  one  ever  suspected  to  be  in  it,  and 
which  was  probably  not  in  it.  The  mere 
suggestion  of  such  a  thing  would,  I  think, 
give  him  pain.  If  ever  a  prophet  of  God 
stood  in  the  midst  of  our  modern  nineteenth 
century  life  with  the  burden  of  God  upon 
his  heart,  and  a  "Thus  saith  the  Lord  "  upon 
his  lips,  this  preacher  of  whom  I  am  speaking 
is  that  prophet. 


272      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

His  intelligent  reverence  for  Scripture  is 
accompanied  with,  or  rather  grows  out  of,  his 
firm  belief  in  the  historical  facts  related  in 
Scripture.  Human  speculations  which  change 
with  the  changing  years  are  with  him  as  the 
small  dust  of  the  balance  when  placed  by  the 
side  of  that  Word  of  the  Living  God  which 
abideth  forever.  Take,  for  example,  that  cen- 
tral fact  of  Scripture,  the  resurrection  of  our 
Lord  from  the  dead.  This  to  Dr.  Maclaren 
is  as  certain  as  any  of  the  facts  of  ancient 
or  modern  history.  For  his  part  he  is  sure 
that  if  that  resurrection  had  not  taken  place 
we  should  have  heard  no  more  of  Jesus  and 
his  religion  than  we  do  of  John  the  Baptist, 
after  his  disciples  took  him  up  and  buried 
him.  He  is  confident  that  if  there  had  been 
no  resurrection  of  Christ,  there  would  have 
been  no  Church  of  Christ.  So  sure  is  he  of 
the  fact  in  question,  that  even  if  he  consented 
to  yield  up  everything  that  the  most  craving 
and  unreasonable  modern  scepticism  can  de- 
mand concerning  the  date  and  authority  of 
the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  he  would 
be  content  to  rest  the  matter  on  the  evidence 
contained  in  the  four  Epistles  of  Paul,  the 
genuineness  of  which  no  one  has  ever  ques- 
tioned.    In  his  view,  next  to  proclaiming  the 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    273 

Gospel,  the  main  work  of  the  Apostles  was 
not  to  pass  on  spiritual  power  and  authority 
in  one  unbroken  chain  of  Apostolical  Suc- 
cession, but  to  be  personal  witnesses  of  the 
resurrection  of  Christ.  That  one  fact  with 
its  consequences  formed  the  substance  of  the 
first  sermon  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  so  far  as  the  Twelve  are  concerned; 
and  Paul  in  his  turn  delivered  unto  his  hear- 
ers, first  of  all,  that  which  he  also  received, 
that  Christ  died  for  our  sins,  was  buried,  and 
had  been  raised  again  on  the  third  day.  In 
this  preacher's  belief,  as  in  Paul's,  there  is 
nothing  but  that  message  between  us  and  the 
darkness  of  despair. 

Further,  he  is  equally  sure  that  the  death 
which  preceded  that  resurrection  was  in  a 
real,  profound,  and  far-reaching  sense  an 
Atonement  for  the  sin  of  the  world,  a  means 
of  Reconciliation  between  God  and  man. 
All  the  agony  of  Gethsemane,  and  all  the 
striking  peculiarities  of  the  death  on  the 
Cross  are  to  him  inexplicable  except  on  this 
understanding.  For  him  the  Cross  of  Christ 
reveals  to  the  world  for  all  time,  and  for 
eternity  too,  a  love  which  shrinks  from  no 
sacrifices ;  a  love  which  is  capable  of  the  most 
entire  abandonment;  a  love  which  is  diffused 

18 


274      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

over  the  whole  surface  of  humanity,  and 
through  all  ages;  a  love  which  comes  laden 
with  the  richest  and  highest  gifts,  even  the 
turning  of  selfish  and  sinful  hearts  into  its 
own  pure  and  perfect  likeness.  It  is  all  this 
because  in  that  death  something  is  done 
which  was  not  completed  by  the  life,  how- 
ever fair,  by  the  words,  however  wise  and 
tender,  by  the  works  of  power,  however  re- 
storative and  healing.  Here  is  something 
more  than  these  present.  What  more  ?  This 
more,  that  His  Cross  is  the  propitiation  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  Take  up  Dr. 
Maclaren's  sermons  when  and  where  you  will, 
in  his  earliest  as  in  his  latest  ministry,  —  there 
is  no  hesitation,  no  wavering,  even  for  a 
moment,  on  this  central  and  most  vital  matter. 
In  his  inmost  soul  so  sure  is  he  that  the  death 
on  the  Cross  effected  something  real  and 
permanent  for  the  salvation  of  the  world,  that 
he  declares,  again  and  again,  that  if  any 
preacher  leaves  this  out  of  his  message  his 
ministry  will  be  futile  and  fruitless.  To  use 
his  own  expression,  a  Christianity  without  a 
dying  Christ  is  a  dying  Christianity. 

To  pass  on  another  step:  What  has  im- 
pressed me  very  powerfully  about  Dr.  Mac- 
laren's  preaching   is   its   intensely  joractical 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    275 

character,  and  that,  too,  in  a  special  and 
somewhat  unusual  sense  of  the  word.  Let 
me  explain  what  I  mean,  for  I  lay  much 
stress  upon  his  preaching  as  a  model  for  all 
preachers  in  this  one  respect. 

When  we  speak  of  practical  freacMng^  we 
usually  associate  with  the  words  the  idea  of 
ethical  instruction  in  the  duties  of  daily  life, 
or  an  attempt  to  deal  with  the  social  problems 
of  our  time.  But  this  is  not  the  precise  idea 
which  is  in  my  mind  just  now.  Here  and 
there  in  the  sermons  I  am  reviewing  you  will 
find  incisive  _  and  instructive  utterances  on 
these  subjects.  But  I  have  an  impression 
that  so  far  as  social  problems  are  concerned 
this  preacher  is  of  opinion  that  if  you  could 
get  men  made  right  within  —  spiritually  right 
—  it  would  not  be  long  before  social  problems 
would  right  themselves.  When  therefore  I 
describe  Dr.  Maclaren's  sermons  as  practical 
preaching,  I  attach  a  much  profounder  mean- 
ing to  the  words  than  that  of  mere  guidance 
in  the  matter  of  ethical  duty.  I  mean  thereby 
clear  and  definite  instruction  as  to  the 
rationale  of  the  divine  life  in  the  souls  of 
men,  —  its  nature,  its  beginnings,  its  after-de- 
velopments, and  the  spiritual  forces  by  which 
it  is  begun  and  carried  on.     I  quite  recognize 


276      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

the  fact  that  other  preachers  deal  with  such 
questions  as  these,  —  many  of  them  ably  and 
to  the  advantage  of  their  people.  But  I  am 
not  able  to  recall  any  other  preacher,  either  of 
Puritan  or  modern  times,  so  clearly  construc- 
tive in  his  teachings  on  the  New  Life  Christ 
came  to  give  us.  There  is  surely  what  may 
be  called  a  science  of  the  spiritual  life,  deal- 
ing with  the  facts  and  forces  of  the  inner 
world  as  revealed  from  God,  and  verified  and 
confirmed  by  the  experience  of  man.  What 
is  this  life?  How  do  we  get  it?  In  what 
way  is  it  related  to  the  already  existing  life  ? 
Along  what  lines  is  it  developed,  and  by  what 
supernatural  forces?  Heaven-illumined  and 
carefully  thought-out  instruction  on  matters 
so  vital  and  practical  is  always  needed,  and 
will  always  be  welcomed  by  the  most  earnest- 
minded  of  our  people.  Some  kind  of  teach- 
ing is  called  for  which  shall  be  equally 
removed  from  the  shallow,  easy-going  plati- 
tudes of  the  mere  revivalist  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  too  vague,  commonplace  utterances 
of  many  ordinary  preachers  on  the  other. 
And  it  is  here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  that  Dr. 
Maclaren's  distinctive  excellence  as  a  preacher 
shows  itself.  Through  a  long  public  life  he 
has   been  a  continuous,  profound,  accurate, 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     277 

and  prayerful  student  of  God's  revelation, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  close  observer  of  the 
actual  facts  of  religious  experience  as  found 
in  the  living  men  and  women  who  make  up 
the  Church  of  God  to-day.  In  this  wa}'-,  so 
far  as  the  nature  of  the  subject  permits,  he 
has  attained  to  something  like  a  clear  and 
coherent  science  of  that  spiritual  life  which 
is  derived  from  Christ  and  maintained  in  the 
soul  by  the  Spirit  of  God ;  and,  as  we  might 
expect,  this  science  underlies  all  his  teachiDgs. 
Let  me  try  to  show  this  in  briefest  manner 
and  in  merest  outline. 

Dr.  Maclaren  finds  both  in  Scripture  teach- 
insf  and  in  the  facts  of  actual  life  a  real  and 
unmistakable  contrast  between  what  we  may 
call  the  natural  man  and  the  spiritual;  or,  to 
use  another  Pauline  expression,  between  the 
old  man  which  waxeth  corrupt  after  the  lusts 
that  deceive,  and  the  new  man  which,  after 
God,  has  been  created  in  righteousness  and 
holiness  of  truth.  Under  all  superficial 
differences  a  Christless  life  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  a  life  shaped  according  to  and 
under  the  influence  of  those  passionate  de- 
sires in  our  nature  which  were  meant  to  be 
the  driving  power,  but  not  the  guiding  power. 
Given  the  immense  variety  of  tastes,  likings, 


278      PURITAN  PREACHING   IN  ENGLAND 

and  desires  which  men  have,  the  point  and 
characteristic  feature  of  every  godless  life  is 
that,  be  these  what  they  may,  they  become 
the  dominant  power  in  tliat  life.  There  may, 
of  course,  be  every  now  and  then  remon- 
strances of  conscience,  considerations  of  pru- 
dence, occasional  dim  desires  after  something 
better;  but  apart  from  Christ  it  is  not  con- 
science that  rules  the  life ;  it  is  not  the  sense 
of  duty  that  is  strongest,  —  the  real  directing 
impulse  to  which  the  inward  proclivities,  if 
not  the  outward  activities  yield  in  the  man, 
is,  —  the  things  that  we  like,  the  passionate 
desires  of  nature,  the  sensuous  and  godless 
heart.  Yet  the  fact  remains,  as  I  have  already 
intimated,  that  these  likes  and  dislikes,  these 
passionate  desires  of  nature  were  never  meant 
to  be  men's  guides.  They  were  meant  to  be 
impulses  having  motive  power;  but  the  de- 
struction of  all  true  manhood  comes  of  their 
being  made  the  directing  power.  Things 
must  be  kept  in  their  right  places,  and  the 
divine  order  stands  thus:  lowest  down  are 
the  strong  impulses  of  our  nature;  above 
them,  the  enlightened  understanding;  above 
that,  the  conscience;  and  above  that  again, 
God  Himself,  irradiating  and  hallowing  all. 
In  the  case  of  the  unspiritual  man,  this  order 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    279 

is  reversed.  The  depravity  of  his  nature 
does  not  mean  that  there  is  no  good  in  him, 
that  in  every  form  of  evil  he  has  gone  the 
greatest  lengths  he  could,  —  but  that  the 
bent  of  his  nature  is  wrong  —  he  is  ruled  by 
his  natural  desires.  And  the  thing  to  be 
noted  is  that  these  desires  deceive  the  man, 
never  yielding  the  satisfaction  they  promise ; 
and  they  corrupt  as  well  as  deceive.  The 
spiritual  nature  is  gradually  destroyed  by  the 
eating  leprosy  of  sin. 

Tlie  facts  being  thus,  the  practical  question 
arises,  How  is  all  this  to  be  changed  ?  How 
shall  the  old  nature,  corrupt  according  to  the 
desires  that  deceive,  become  the  new  nature 
which,  after  God,  is  created  in  righteousness 
and  holiness  of  truth?  The  new  man  is  not 
our  work,  it  is  God's  creation.  But  how  is  it 
brought  about  ?  The  answer  is  —  by  the  re- 
ception of  a  new  life  from  above,  a  life  from 
Christ  imparted  to  the  soul  through  the 
avenue  of  a  trusting  faith,  and  by  the  mys- 
terious action  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  The  past 
is  blotted  out  b}^  forgiveness,  and  a  new  force 
is  started  to  be  the  force  of  the  future.  The 
law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  sets 
the  man  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  of 
death. 


280     PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

But  now  as  to  the  part  which  the  man 
himself  has  to  take  in  the  matter,  how 
does  he  get  this  life?  The  answer  given 
is  that  which  comes  from  Christ  Himself 
—  "by  Faith  that  is  in  Me.''  Thus  the 
starting-point  is  reached,  which  is  faith,  — 
personal  trust  in  a  personal  Saviour.  When 
it  is  said  that  faith  saves  a  man,  this  is  true 
and  yet  not  true.  It  is  not  faith  which  saves, 
but  that  to  which  faith  clings.  It  is  Christ 
that  saves.  Faith  is  simply  the  hand  that 
takes  the  gift,  the  channel  along  which  the 
water  of  life  flows  into  the  soul.  If  it  were 
not  for  the  gift,  the  hand  would  be  nothing; 
if  it  were  not  for  the  water,  the  channel  would 
be  useless.  Faith  saves  by  getting  a  living 
hold  of  the  Christ  who  saves.  The  object  of 
faith  is  not  a  creed,  but  a  Person,  whom  it  is 
the  work  of  the  creeds  to  make  known  to  us, 
since  we  cannot  trust  without  knowing  some- 
thing about  Him  whom  we  trust.  And  the 
Person  thus  made  known  is  not  merely  one 
who  is  set  forth  as  our  example  or  teacher. 
The  Christ,  trusting  in  whom  is  salvation,  is 
the  Christ  whose  blood  cleanses  from  all  sin, 
whose  righteousness  makes  us  righteous  — 
Christ  Himself  in  the  sweetness  and  gracious- 
ness  of  His  character,  but  also  in  the  sacrifice 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    281 

of  His  death  and  in  the  glory  of  His  risen  life. 
This  is  the  Christ,  trusting  in  whom  we  live. 

The  value  of  faith  then  consists  in  the  gran- 
deur and  fulness  of  the  object  to  which  faith 
is  directed.  And  as  for  faith  itself,  it  is  not 
something  occult  and  mysterious  which  be- 
longs to  the  sphere  of  religion  and  is  found 
nowhere  else.  It  is  strictly  parallel  with  the 
trust  which  we  have  in  one  another  in  daily 
life.  The  feeling  which  knits  us  to  Christ, 
and  to  God  in  Christ,  is  the  same  as  that 
which  knits  us  to  one  another,  and  which 
makes  it  possible  that  the  world  should  go 
on  at  all.  The  same  confidence  which  men 
have  with  one  another  in  business,  the  same 
confidence  with  which  we,  in  our  families, 
safely  trust  in  the  love  and  truth  of  wife  or 
husband,  friend  or  child,  when  directed  to 
Jesus  Christ,  becomes  the  spring  and  heart  of 
all  religion. 

The  union  thus  brought  about  by  this  trust 
between  Christ  and  the  soul  carries  with  it 
two  results,  —  one  dealing  with  the  past,  the 
other  with  the  future.  It  brings  with  it  the 
forgiveness  of  sin  and  the  transformation  of 
the  one  life  into  the  likeness  of  the  other. 
The  forgiveness  of  sin  is  a  real  thing  to  the 
man,  a  veritable  blotting  out  of  transgression. 


282      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

This  is  something  more  than  the  remission  of 
penalty,  the  deliverance  from  condemnation; 
though  all  this  is  most  surely  in  it.  It  ex- 
tends to  the  removal  of  all  hindrances  to  the 
outflow  of  our  heavenly  Father's  love,  and  to 
the  actual  communication  of  that  love  as 
being  the  very  heart  of  His  forgiveness  to  us. 
Notwithstanding  the  black  barrier  which  we 
have  flung  across  the  stream  by  our  sin,  the 
pure  and  deep  flood  of  the  love  of  God  rises 
and  surges  over  the  impediment  and  fills  our 
souls.  This  forgiveness  does  away  with  the 
penalty  of  sin.  What  is  that  penalty?  The 
wages  of  sin  is  death,  —  the  wrenching  away 
of  a  dependent  soul  from  God,  —  your  sins 
have  separated  between  you  and  God.  How 
is  that  penalty  ended  ?  By  the  union  of  the 
soul  with  God  in  a  threefold  bond  of  trust, 
love,  and  obedience.  The  real  penalty,  which 
is  separation  from  God,  passes  away  when 
the  love  is  welcomed  and  received.  The 
outward  consequences  of  sin  in  the  life  may 
still  remain  to  humble  the  man  and  make  him 
watchful.  A  man  who  has  been  immoral  in 
the  past  may  have  to  carry  the  consequences 
of  his  sin  with  him  in  his  body  to  the  grave, 
and  yet  be  a  forgiven  man.  For  our  worst 
sins,  there  is  plenteous  redemption,  and  yet 


PREACHERS    OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    283 

our  least  sins  may,  in  our  lives,  our  charac- 
ters, our  memories,  our  consciences,  our 
worldly  position,  reputation,  and  health, 
leave  their  traces  and  consequences. 

Such,  so  far  as  the  past  is  concerned,  is  the 
result  of  faith  in  Christ  to  the  soul  that 
trusts.  There  is  also  further  result.  Christ 
comes  and  lives  in  that  man.  There  is  a 
divine  indwelling  of  Christ  in  the  man  by 
His  Spirit.  Just  as  light  and  beauty  travel 
into  the  soul  through  the  eye,  and  the  har- 
monies of  music  through  the  ear,  so  through 
the  avenues  of  trust  and  love  comes  Christ 
by  His  Spirit  into  the  innermost  depths  of  the 
life.  And  this  is  an  indwelling  which  fits 
for  further  indwelling.  Christ  in  the  heart 
makes  the  heart  more  fit  for  Christ.  If  we 
let  Him  in.  He  makes  us  temples  meet  for 
Himself.  The  indwelling  issues  in  transfor- 
mation. As  iron  near  a  magnet  becomes 
magnetic,  so  souls  in  which  Christ  dwells 
become  Christlike.  The  likeness  extends, 
becomes  deeper,  truer,  every  way  more  per- 
fect; comprehends  more  and  more  of  the 
faculties  of  the  man ;  enters  into  him  until  he 
is  saturated  with  the  glory ;  and  in  all  the 
extent  of  his  being,  and  in  all  the  depth  pos- 
sible to  each  part  of  that  whole   extent,  is 


284      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

like  his  Lord.  That  is  the  hope  for  heaven, 
towards  which  we  may  indefinitely  approxi- 
mate here,  and  at  which  we  shall  absolutely 
arrive  there. 

Such,  in  brief  and  as  gathered  from  various 
discourses,  is  Dr.  Maclaren's  putting  of  the 
facts  of  the  spiritual  life  in  man,  —  what  that 
life  is,  how  it  comes,  how  it  is  developed, 
and  to  what  issues  it  tends.  No  doubt  much 
of  what  I  have  stated  sounds  familiar  enough, 
yet  few  indeed  are  the  preachers  who  have 
made  the  laws  of  that  life  so  clear  to  our 
apprehension,  so  living,  so  real,  who  have 
studied  them  with  such  keen  insight  of 
human  intelligence  joined  to  such  depth  of 
divine  illumination. 

Then,  too,  not  only  so  far  as  the  substance 
of  his  teaching  is  concerned,  does  this  great 
preacher  of  our  own  time  serve  as  a  model  to 
us,  but  also  in  the  crystal  clearness  of  his 
way  of  putting  the  truth  before  the  minds  of 
his  audience.  His  first  aim  seems  to  be  to 
see  straight  into  the  very  heart  of  the  subject 
before  him.  He  makes  what  is  most  vital 
and  central  stand  out  with  most  distinctness. 
He  does  not  burden  the  mind  or  distract  the 
attention  by  too  many  details,  and  he  so 
arranges  his  thoughts  that,  in  the  most  natu- 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    285 

ral  manner,  one  part  of  the  subject  prepares 
the  way  for  that  which  is  to  follow.  So  that 
it  must  be  a  dull  mind  indeed  which  cannot 
follow  him  along  the  path  he  travels.  He 
never  descends  to  little  tricks  or  devices  in 
stating  the  divisions  of  his  sermon.  His  sole 
aim,  evidently,  is  to  present  the  truth  in  its 
very  simplest  form.  These  divisions  are 
serious  and  seriously  meant,  and  they  are 
arranged  in  such  manner  as  to  show  that  one 
of  the  clearest  and  most  far-seeing  intellects 
has  been  keenly  at  work.  By  way  of  illus- 
tration, take  his  sermon  on  the  text  (Rom. 
viii.  17):  "If  children  then  heirs,  heirs  of 
God  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ."  Premis- 
ing first  that  God  Himself  is  His  own  great- 
est gift,  and  that  the  richest  blessing  we  can 
receive  is  to  be  made  heirs  of  God,  posses- 
sors of  God  in  the  only  way  one  person  can 
possess  another,  by  love  and  living  inter- 
course, he  proceeds  to  point  out  the  condi- 
tions upon  which  the  possession  of  this  great 
inheritance  depends.  He  shows  that  in  the 
condensed  utterance  of  the  text  we  have  the 
following  series  of  truths :  There  is  no  inheri- 
tance without  sonship;  there  is  no  sonship 
without  a  spiritual  birth ;  there  is  no  spiritual 
birth  without  Christ;  there  is  no  Christ  for 


286      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

US  without  faith.  Such  is  his  lucid  way  of 
putting  things.  It  is  the  great  merit  of  Dr. 
Maclaren's  preaching  that  the  most  ordinary 
minds  can  follow  him  with  interest  from  first 
to  last,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  intel- 
lectual feel,  on  after-reflection,  that  there  was 
more  in  what  they  heard  than  they  saw  at 
the  time.  Speaking  generally,  there  are  in 
his  sermons  no  ragged  edges,  no  confusions 
of  thought,  no  signs  of  struggle  as  of  a  man 
making  his  way  through  mental  fog.  You 
feel  as  you  listen  that  this  preacher  has  mas- 
tered his  subject,  has  clearly  seen  his  way 
right  through  before  he  stood  up  there  face 
to  face  with  the  people.  Addressing  himself 
to  preachers,  he  once  said :  "  Don't  try  to  be 
eloquent  or  mind  "very  much  about  words." 
But  he  himself  is  eloquent  without  trying  to 
be,  —  eloquent  witli  the  eloquenca  of  strong 
conviction  and  clearly  ascertained  'truth. 

And  I  must  not  fail  to  n-dlice  that  the  great 
literary  and  intellectual  qualities  of  this  man 
are  suffused  with  intense  spiritual  earnestness, 
—  earnestness  which  is  not  merely  assumed 
for  the  hour  he  stands  up  there,  but  which  is 
of  a  piece  with  his  whole  life.  During  the 
few  times  I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  hear- 
ing him  in  his  own  church,  I  have  come  away 


PREACHERS   OF  MODERN  PURITANISM     287 

from  the  midst  of  the  crowd  pouring  through 
the  doorways,  feeling  that  it  must  be  a  solemn 
responsibility  for  any  congregation  to  listen 
constantly  to  such  preaching  as  that.  Either 
it  must  lead  to  great  enlightenment  and  ele- 
vation of  character,  or  to  great  callousness  of 
soul,  according  as  it  is  received  or  rejected. 
The  explanation  of  this  man's  power  is  that 
he  dwells  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High 
and  abides  under  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty. 
In  the  most  unaffected  way,  he  tells  us :  "I 
have  always  found  that  my  own  comfort  and 
efficiency  in  preaching  have  been  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  frequency  and  depth  of 
daily  communion  with  God.  I  know  no  way 
in  which  we  can  do  our  work  but  in  quiet 
fellowship  with  Him;  in  resolutely  keeping 
up  the  habits  of  the  student's  life,  which  needs 
some  power  of  saying,  No  ;  and  by  conscien- 
tious pulpit  preparation.  The  secret  of  suc- 
cess in  everything  is  trust  in  God  and  hard 
work. " 

In  these  direct  and  manly  words  you  have 
the  spirit  of  this  man's  life  and  the  secret  of 
his  success.  How  much  of  spiritual  good  has 
been  accomplished  under  God  by  this  hon- 
ored and  faithful  ministry  of  now  more  than 
fifty  years,    no   man   knows.      You   can   no 


288      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

more  tabulate  spiritual  results  than  you  can 
weigh  the  fragrance  of  flowers  in  scales,  or 
the  beauty  of  the  landscape  in  a  balance. 
But  the  day  shall  declare  it.  And  in  that 
day  "they  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the 
brightness  of  the  firmament;  and  they  that 
turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  for 
ever  and  ever." 

To-day  I  bring  my  task  to  a  close  and  take 
my  leave  of  you.  It  would  gladden  me  much 
to  think  that  I  had  been  in  any  degree  hon- 
ored of  God  to  exalt  your  ideal  of  the  min- 
istry, and  strengthen  a  worthy  ambition  to  be 
found  faithful  therein.  I  congratulate  you 
on  the  career  which  may  open  up  before  you 
as  ministers  of  Christ  when  your  studies  in 
this  place  have  reached  their  end.  If  I  may 
allow  myself  a  personal  reference,  I  would 
say,  after  nearly  five  and  forty  years  spent  in 
the  Congregational  ministry,  were  life  to 
begin  again  I  could  wish  it  to  be  spent  along 
the  same  pleasant  path  of  honorable  service, 
with  this  difference,  that  it  might  be  more 
faithfully  spent.  The  work  never  seemed 
so  great  as  it  does  now,  —  now  as  the  shadow 
lengthens  on  the  plain,  and  the  day  wears  on 
to  evensong. 

As  one  by  one  you  leave  the  college  gates 


PREACHERS  OF  MODERN  PURITANISM    289 

at  the  end  of  j-our  college  course,  to  think  of 
something  like  forty  or  fifty  years'  service 
ahead  may  seem  like  looking  along  an  inex- 
haustible vista  of  time.  You  will  be  sur- 
prised hereafter,  if  spared,  to  find  how  quickly 
all  these  years  are  gone.  With  all  your  heart 
throw  yourselves  into  your  work  from  the 
first.  You  will  find  it  deepen  in  interest. 
Apart  from  your  public  service,  or  rather 
growing  out  of  it,  your  lives  will  become  in- 
tertwined with  other  lives  in  the  most  sacred 
relationships.  You  will  be  with  your  people, 
not  onl}^  in  sanctuary  worship,  but  also  in 
all  the  varied  scenes  of  personal  and  family 
life.  You  will  be  with  them,  not  only  along 
the  quiet  levels  of  routine,  but  also  in  times 
when  God  is  dealing  closest  with  them,  in 
hours  of  great  sorrows  and  deep  heart  experi- 
ences, when  it  seems  as  if  all  God's  waves 
and  billows  were  going  over  them.  It  is  at 
such  times  that  the  most  sacred  ties  are 
formed.  As  you  enter  with  brotherly  sym- 
pathy into  the  various  jo3-s  and  sorrows  of 
their  life,  your  people  will  grow  to  be  much 
to  you,  —  how  much  you  will  never  know  till 
you  are  called  to  leave  them,  or  they  to  leave 
you.  An  apostle  of  Christ  who  was  a  true 
shepherd  of  souls  in  the  olden  time,  spoke  of 

19 


290      PURITAN  PREACHING  IN  ENGLAND 

the  people  to  whom  he  had  ministered  in  the 
Gospel  as  "  my  brethren  beloved  and  longed- 
for,  my  joy  and  crown."  "For  what  is  our 
hope,  or  joy  or  crown  of  glorying?  Are  not 
even  ye,  before  our  Lord  Jesus  at  His  coming? 
For  ye  are  our  glory  and  joy." 

In  saying  farewell  to  you,  let  me  leave  this 
good  wish  for  you,  that  you  may  have  many 
years  of  happy  service  among  a  people  knit 
to  your  hearts  by  ties  as  sacred  as  these  thus 
exultingly  set  forth ;  and  at  the  end  may  both 
they  and  you  be  numbered  with  God's  saints 
in  glory  everlasting ! 


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